#struggling and clinging and digging in her claws as she watches this girl somehow get Worse(?)

[junebugtwin]

even while it was happening, you knew it wasn't going to last

[fanfictionwritingoddity]

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙗𝙤𝙮’𝙨 𝙆𝙧𝙮𝙥𝙩𝙤𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙚: 𝙋𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙁𝙤𝙪𝙧

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1.7𝙠 𝐭𝐰: 𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙚, 𝙟𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙮, 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨, 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝, 𝙢𝙪𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧, 𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙭𝙞𝙚𝙩𝙮, 𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙥𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣, 𝙨𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙡𝙮 𝙨𝙪𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚, 𝙝𝙮𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣, 𝙠𝙞𝙙𝙣𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠: 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙜𝙤 𝙬𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙜 - 𝙝𝙪𝙙𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙖𝙮𝙡𝙤𝙧 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏 | 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟐 | 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟑 | 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟒

 ( 𝚈𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎!𝙾𝚒𝚔𝚊𝚠𝚊 𝚃𝚘𝚘𝚛𝚞 𝚡 𝙵𝚎𝚖!𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 )

You nervously tapped your pencil eraser against the top of your desk, ignoring the growing pit in your stomach. Matsukawa was never late. Not without texting you, that is. In all of your two years of friendship, he had always made sure to message you and make you aware when he wouldn’t be in or on time. He knew you had anxiety, and thus made sure to do all he could to keep you comfortable.

It was hard to resist the urge to glance at your phone screen, but somehow you managed. You knew that if Issei texted you, the screen would light up and a small ping would resound from your device. The ringing of the next class bell startled you, so much so that you actually dropped your phone. Your heart pounded in your chest as you attempted to simultaneously calm down and pick up the electronic.

Before you could reach it, a pale hand shot out, gently lifting it from the floor and setting it onto the desk. You blinked in surprise, trying to figure out who had helped you without seeming like some creep. When you heard the slight laughter, you jumped, quickly straightening your posture.

Oikawa was standing in front of you, his umber eyes flitting around the room in confusion. You wondered why he had arrived at your classroom, before remembering the bell. Ah, that’s right, it’s lunch time. He must have come here to see Matsukawa so they could walk together to lunch. Expression twisting into one of anxiety, you looked at the phone now sitting on your desk, realizing the screen was slightly cracked. There were still no notifications.

“Y/N, do you have any idea where Matsukawa is?”

You weren’t sure how much longer you would be able to hold it together, and opted to turn and pretend to search through your bag after shaking your head in denial. Tooru frowned, scratching the back of his neck a few times.

“Do you?”

There was a slight crack in your voice, your throat constricting uncomfortably when you spoke. 

“I might,” he muttered, looking off to the side in thought. You leapt up at this, grabbing the captain’s free hand and clasping it tightly.

“Is he alright? Did something happen?”

Oikawa’s heart sped up due to the proximity and the way your smaller hands squeezed around his. God, you were wonderful. But he couldn’t break the act just yet. Feigning deep thought, he took a few moments to answer, narrowing his eyes as the seconds passed.

“Well, last night he told me some things… I tried to check up on him but he wouldn’t answer any texts.”

One glance at your forlorn and let down expression was enough to make the setter aware of his victory.

“There’s a lot to explain, but I think I might know where he is. I’m going to be busy all day, so if you’d like, maybe wait for me and after practice I’ll walk you home and explain. Is that alright?”

Your nodding was so eager that Tooru couldn’t help the smile breaking onto his lips. It quickly fell when the reality of the situation weighed in on his mind; you were acting so eager to hear about a bastard who didn’t even deserve the time of day. Well, who hadn’t deserved the time of day. Luckily he wouldn’t be bothering you anymore. Your love made sure of it, of course.

The wait was tortuous. The entire day seemed to last for months, hours turning into days and minutes into hours. You had asked around, wondering if Issei had spoken to anyone besides Oikawa last night. The verdict was negative, even the Seijoh volleyball team didn’t know what was going on. It wasn’t like him to miss practice, much less without a warning or explanation.

The pit in your stomach eagerly grew with each passing class. By the time school was over and you were left to wait for practice to end, it weighed heavier than any burden you had ever shouldered alone. There had never been a reason for you to make friends besides Issei and Kaori, but Kaori was busy with club activities so you were unable to vent to her. When you explained the situation she had completely understood, shooing you away with promises to make an excuse for you.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t focus on your homework. A voice in the back of your mind was screaming that something was so terribly wrong. Had he gotten hurt? Did the girl he walked with do something to him? Or did he just end up staying over at her house? You never did get her name, so for all you know she could also be absent. It wouldn’t be out of character for Matsukawa to skip a day to help someone he cared about.

On days when you had been sick and your parents had been too busy to take care of you, Issei had pretended to be under the weather so he could sneak over to your house and help nurse you back to health. But even then, he would explain the situation to his teammates, and they would all cover for him. So, if that was the case now, why hadn’t he said anything? Why did he only tell Oikawa?

It just didn’t seem to add up. Matsukawa was closer to a few other guys on the team than he was to Tooru, so why was he the only one who knew what was going on?

Shaking your head, you patted your cheeks a few times to calm yourself down. You couldn’t let your overthinking get the best of you. Oikawa would never lie to you like that. He was a playboy, sure, and liked to flirt with literally everyone, but that didn’t make him someone who would hurt your best friend. Here you were again, letting your thoughts get away from you and become overpowered by anxiety.

While you were stuck in your own mind, struggling with your intuition and logic, volleyball practice had promptly wrapped up. When the sound of shouted calls and balls hitting the court ceased, you looked up from the question you had been staring at and noticed that most of the guys had made their way to the locker room to grab their bags. You stood up, eagerly stuffing the papers you hadn’t made any progress on into your bag as you almost tripped over your feet running down the staircase from the stands.

Oikawa was waiting for you at the bottom, one hand on his hip and the other slinging his volleyball bag over his shoulder. He watched you almost stumble down the steps, letting out a soft chuckle whilst you scampered over to him. Soft puffs of breath left your mouth and adrenaline coursed through your veins. You were finally going to find out what happened to Issei!

“Follow me, cutie.”

The rest of the team had already left, and since you were the last out it was your job to turn the lights off. The gym slowly dimmed, row after row of lights shutting off. Tooru started with the bright LED fixtures closest to you, flicking the light switches one by one. Eventually, he stopped, leaving one light on. This action confused you, so you drew your eyes away from the ceiling to his face, bewilderment written all over your countenance.

Tooru was tempted to turn every light off. Would you cling to him in fear? Would you scream? Or would you find comfort in the pitch black, while he broke the news about your ‘friend’.

No, as much as he wanted to, Oikawa knew it would be much more enjoyable and satisfying to see your face. He wanted to watch your expression crumble while pretty tears of disbelief gathered in the corners of those beautiful eyes. The setter wanted to see how you shook and trembled.

He wanted to see every single side of you.

“Y/N, Matsukawa… he’s…”

God, he hated the way you perked up when he uttered that stupid name.

“He’s dead.”

Your features immediately fell, eyelids fluttering open and shut as you tried to comprehend the words that just left Tooru’s mouth. Your mind raced at the speed of light, questions tumbling out of your mouth with a broken and unsettled tone.

“What do you mean? How do you- how do you even know? Is this some prank? Where the hell is Isse-”

Just as his name was about to leave your mouth, Oikawa covered your lips with his palm. There was a smoldering hatred in his eyes, one of pure malice and discontent. The look alone sent shivers down your spine, leaving your knees trembling as tears began to blur your vision. What was happening? Why was he doing this? You tried to make space between you, but eventually ran out of room as your back hit the hard wall.

“I know because I killed him myself. And you know I’m not one to half-ass something like that, right princess?”

The word betrayal was an understatement to the immense pain you felt. The tears that had been gathering in your glossy eyes spilled over, slipping down your cheeks and onto Tooru’s hand. You looked so adorable like this, he thought, your protests muffled as you weakly tried to shove him away.

“It’s not my fault, you’re the one who liked him in the first place. If you didn’t fall in love with him, he would still be alive now.”

This was… your fault?

“You know, I’ve liked you for two years. Every time I saw your adorable face in the stands at our games, I pushed myself past my limits in the hopes that it was me you came to see. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that you would show up in my little fanclub.”

The tremors shaking your body were so violent you were having trouble breathing. You were starting to hyperventilate. Desperately clawing at the hand covering your mouth, you tried your best to steady your hand enough to dig your nails in, but the attempt was to no avail.

“Imagine my pain when you told me you liked someone else. Let alone, someone so unworthy of your attention. That hurt like hell, doll.”

His tone was nothing but a growl as he pressed harder against your mouth, stifling your breath. The world around you began to fade to black, noir clouds creeping across your vision as your grip on his arms lessened. Eventually, you passed out, collapsing forward into Oikawa’s waiting arms.

“Hm, I guess you really are my kryptonite. Good thing I have you all to myself now, right?”

𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 :  @kray-dragon , @lagoonsmainacc , @steampunkhell

[sabraeal]

Sic Semper Monstrum, Chapter 6

[Read on AO3]

Obiyukiweek 2021, Day 2: Death Upright: Change, Ending, Release Reversed: Refusal to Change, Unfulfillment, Stagnation

A seam strains along a well-worn shoulder, so stretched he can actually hear it creak over the din of the canteen. That clinches is: that asshole’s got to be picking out too-small fatigues from the GI bin.

There’s no other way for him to look like that, biceps testing the tensile strength of cotton every time he takes a sip of his coffee. Sure, this guy’s jacked the way all the active rangers are, ready to heave 750 tons of metal onto their backs at a moment’s notice, but he’s not Mitsuhide. It makes sense when he pops buttons off his coverall, or stretches out one of their dingy cotton tees. But that’s not this asshole.

He’s lean, the kind that telegraphs that taking an elbow from him might be career limiting. There’s no reason the general issue tee should cling to his back like it’s painted on, his coverall hanging off his hips like he’s got an occupation other than freeloading. Shirayuki leans over, fingertips brushing over his sleeve with a laugh--

“Just punch him already,” Kiki drawls, “get it out of your system.”

Zen blinks, suddenly aware there’s still some Taco Tuesday left in his mouth. “What?”

“Kiki.” Dark bruises circle the skin beneath Mitsuhide’s eyes, underscoring the weary strain in his voices. “We shouldn’t be encouraging that sort of behavior.”

“Why not?” Her elbows dig into formica as she leans over her plate, shoveling rice into her mouth. At her father’s table, Kiki knows the use of every spoon, the name of every fork, but this deep in the dome, Ranger Seiran’s never met a meal she can’t inhale in five minutes flat. “I did it.”

Air hisses right through his perfect teeth, the only sign he’s annoyed besides the tense bar of his shoulders. “And you’re lucky you didn’t get caught.”

Kiki hums around the lip of her mug. “You mean like you did with Lugis?”

Mitsuhide doesn’t have skin like his, the sort that flares up like flash paper at the barest hint of sun or taunting. But still his neck flushes red as a burn, so bright Zen’s half tempted to slap it, just so he knows what it’s like.

“T-that was an accident,” he insists, even as his mouth settles into a satisfied smile. “Even the inquiry said so.”

It’s a struggle to keep his own from curling at the edges. “Only because Lugis didn’t want to press charges.”

“Only because he didn’t want it getting out that a girl ran circles around him on the mat,” Kiki corrects, each word a scalpel’s slice, excising those particulars from that shitshow with surgical precision. They can talk about this; Lugis’s challenge and the way Kiki swept him; that he was hardly on his feet when Mitsuhide somehow mislaid his fist and found it in his face, but everything else, the whys of it--

Those are all off the record. Forever. Or at least they would be, if Lugis wasn’t crawling through the dome like a stoat that’s caught whiff of an egg.

But that’s not what this is about. “And you want me to do that with that asshole?” Zen mutters. “Since it made Mitsuhide such good friends with Lugis, after all.”

“Obi isn’t Hisame,” Kiki informs him with the kind of steel in her tone that suggests she won’t be taking critique on that particular assessment. “All your issues with him are external.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snaps, teeth gritting down.

It’s a mistake, a rookie one at that: never ask a Seiran a question you don’t want the answer to. “He’s got Shirayuki’s attention and you don’t.”

Mitsuhide clears his throat, shoulders set like Zen better plan to shelter in place. This particular storm isn’t about to hit its usual conversational breakwall. “Attention you’d have, if you hadn’t skipped out on your session.”

Zen grips the table to take that hit. But it’s not nearly the last; the stare Kiki turns to him is wide-eyed, half-betrayed. “You didn’t say anything about that.”

“It’s none of your business.” Even as the words fly from him, he knows it’s not fair, that he’s spitting nails into the wind so that they’ll hurt someone else instead of him. It doesn’t stop him, it never does, but a guilty knot settles in his gut. “The sessions are voluntary. They always have been. I don’t need--”

“Someone to keep your head on straight?” Every syllable snaps like ice, her eyes twice as cold. “That was the whole point, wasn’t it? So if something happens to us, you’d have--”

He can’t listen to this, not another word. “That was never the plan! I would never plan for you guys...”

Not coming back. For Redwood Dancer to be left a ruin on the sea floor, their bodies strapped in, hermetically sealed until the ocean wore the jaeger down to parts.

“Nothing is happening to you guys,” he grits out. “Shirayuki was always an addition, not a-- a replacement, because you’ll never--”

“No one can promise that.” Mitsuhide’s never one to throw a first punch, but oh, does he know how to end a fight. All the breath’s knocked clean out of him, and there’s Dancer’s right hand, shoveling down another bite of rice like it’s nothing. “Every time we go out there it’s a flip of a coin. It doesn’t matter how good we are, one day there’s going to be a kaiju that kicks us clean off our feet.”

He shakes his head, wishing the words would fall right out of them. “No. That’s not--”

“Zen.” He’s never heard a siren’s call, but it can’t be as inexorable as Mitsuhide saying his name in that tone, both firm and pitying and mournful all at once. “You know better than anyone. Rangers don’t grow old.”

There’s no thought when he levers himself up from the table, just up with away chasing its heels. He just can’t be here listening to this, not now, not after they just barely crawled home from another kaiju clawing its way across Korea’s shoreline. Not when he knows he should be fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with them-- that he would be if they stopped trying to saddle him with every rookie that rolled out of the simulator and finally put him with the only person that could fill that brace beside him.

“Zen!”

It’s easy to ignore Mitsuhide’s shout over the dinner rush; it’s just part of the noise, a buzz at the edge of his senses. Something to goad him, to push him out of there before either of them think to follow after. Their pity’s the last thing he needs, the last thing he wants. After all, it’s not him that won’t climb in the Conn-Pod, but his--

“Boss!”

Zen blinks, the empty corridor resolving around him. He’d let his feet carry him, their only imperative away-- and now he’s all turned around, every bulkhead the same. He’s heard about this happening to rangers when they lived in the dome too long; chasing the Minotaur, a ranger called it, three drinks down at the local hangar. And no fine little princess to give you string to find your way out.

Except he did have one of those. A person to help him through the labyrinth, even if she couldn’t show him the way. He’d been avoiding her.

That seems stupid now. It’s not like she’s on that asshole’s--

“Hey! Hey, boss.”

Speak of the devil. Zen turns, and there he is, too-tight t-shirt and all: his own personal problem. “What do you want?”

“Nothing.” He holds out his hands, as if that’s proof enough to clear him of ulterior motives. “I just...saw you head out and it looked like...”

Zen’s shoulders square, body braced like they’re back on the mat. “Looked like what?”

Obi’s breath rushes out of him. “It looked like you shouldn’t be alone.”

It’s not until he lifts his hand that he realizes it’s trembling, barely able to push his bangs back where he needs them. “Yeah? And you thought-- what? I’d want to see you?” Even to his own ears, his laugh is bitter, wrong, like it came from someone else’s mouth. “You, the guy who won’t get out of my way?”

Something ripples across this asshole’s face, too fast for him to catch more than its wake. “You think I’m the stick stuck in the mud here?” When those strange cat’s eyes stare at him, it’s out of placid waters, but that grin on his face-- it doesn’t reach them. “Rock, meet hard place.”

Zen’s hands clench, so hard his knuckles creak. “You think this is a joke? You’re trying to shove your ass in a seat that isn’t for you, and you--”

“You think I want to be out there?” He lets out a bark somewhere between pitying and derisive, arms folding over his chest. Zen takes special care not to check how stressed his seams are. “I did my time, Your Highness. I got out. I got told no one would ever look for me again.”

“Then why are you here?” Zen spits. “No one wants you.”

“You don’t know how true I wish that was.” A hand pulls at his shoulder, long fingers digging in around the blade. “But your brother dragged me down the coast because I’m not done. I’ll never be done, because I can’t sit on the sidelines and watch Snotju or Head Banger or whatever cosmic asshole crawls out of the rift wreck another wall.”

His hand lifts, scrubbing through the bristle of his hair, just a shade too shaggy to be regulation. “It’s fucked up, isn’t it, Master? I’m the one who doesn’t want to be here, but I’m the one who’s got the balls to get back in that jaeger. And you--” a cold gaze rakes over him-- “you’re content to sit there and watch the world burn just because I’m not--”

“Shut up.” He’s trembling, every muscle straining against his self-control. “Shut the fuck up. You don’t know a goddamn thing--”

“I’ve been in your head,” that asshole reminds him. “I know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“You don’t.” He can’t. “You don’t fucking know a thing about me.”

He cocks a hip, grin loaded like a bullet. “The prove it.”

Kiki’s right: in the instant where his knuckles hit that cut-glass cheekbone, Zen feels great.

Shirayuki’s office has always put him at ease; he stepped in here the first time before she’d even properly covered the walls, the tension seeping right out of him into the push carpet under his boots. There’s just something about how she fills a space-- something that has nothing to do with furniture or wall hangings or motivational posters-- that makes his brain put out whatever chemical that means safe. He’d never understood why the other rangers avoided her, not when they could have forty minutes in the room equivalent of a warm hug.

But it’s different this time.

“Izana made you call me here.” He’s ramrod straight on her worn couch, hands clenched in his lap. Or rather, right over the throw pillow he moved to sit. “Didn’t he?”

“The Marshal’s personal feelings have nothing to do with this.” Her words snap like a window on a sill, closing on that topic with a sense of finality he expected from the top brass, not their therapist. “The PPDC’s code of conduct is quite clear on the procedure to be followed after a non-sanctioned physical altercation between personnel.”

There’s a loose thread right by the fringe; he’d noticed it months ago, but never dared to tug it. Every time he’d felt the urge, he’d think of dominoes and load-bearing pillars, of the whole edge unraveling in his hands right as she looked at him.

Today, he pulls. It comes right off with a snap. “And that’s the only reason you brought me in?“

Shirayuki turns to him, one incredulous brow raised. “You were the one who cancelled our last session--” her mouth twitches as she twists the knife-- “last minute.”

Well, he deserves that one. Sure, he’s had his reasons, but Shirayuki-- well, she deserved more than one step up from ghosting. If the thought of having to look anyone in the eye after all that hadn’t made his stomach turn for three days, maybe he would have come to that conclusion before Kiki ripped him a new one over it.

“Sorry about that,” he mutters, aware with every word that it’s not enough, that there’s not enough apologies to patch up the trust he broke. “I wasn’t...ready to talk.”

He expects the clap back; yeah I got the message, or but you were ready to take a swing? But he should have known: that’s not how Shirayuki works. She’s a professional, whether that’s what he wants from her or not.

Instead he face softens, right back into his friend. “I know. What happened in the drift can be...intense.” She hesitates, teeth sinking into the plush bow of her lip. “I just wish that you had felt comfortable conveying that to me. As my patient, you’re supposed to be able to control--”

“I don’t want to be your patient.”

Her mouth closes with a grunt, hand pressed to her stomach as if he hit her. “O-oh,” she murmurs, breathless. “I hadn’t realized that you, ah, wanted to terminate our sessions--”

“No!” God, it would be nice to be able to say this all smooth like he’s sure that jacked asshole can, leaning against a wall with his hand right by her head, sexual tension rocking the Richter scale. “I just meant--” his teeth try to grind down his thoughts into something palatable-- “Shirayuki, I don’t want to just be your patient.”

He could fall into her eyes they’re so wide, rounded ‘o’s that match her mouth’s geometry. “Ah, Zen, that’s...”

“I don’t mean because I-I like you.” Even though he does, but there’s rules for that. The kind the PPDC will look the other way on, but not Shirayuki. She’s not from under the dome; she still worries about what people might think outside of it. “I just...wish you were on my side.”

“I am on your side.” Her shoulders pull straight against the back of her chair, her soft look hardening into resolve. “Which is different from telling you want you want to hear.”

He jerks back, cheeks stinging like he’d been slapped. “I didn’t say I wanted that,” he mumbles, hands clenching over his lap. “But I don’t need you to tell me to do whatever it is Izana wants me to either.”

“I wasn’t going to.” The notebooks in her lap closes with a snap, and with trembling fingers, she sets aside her shield. “Izana wants you back in a jeager for the legacy. For the unbroken line of Wisterias standing between humanity and the rift. But I...”

Her eyes lift to his, and they’re no longer the lush, leafy green of a forest, but the hard glint of emerald. “If you get back in that cockpit, you need to do it for yourself.”

It’s an effort not to say, I don’t see the difference.

“I saw you when the siren went off.”

Zen scrubs a hand over his face; he remembers. Their eyes had met over that seething mass of fear and competence, and-- and he’d been so sure that if he saw her, something more than that glimpse of red in the corner of his vision, he’d forget every inch of his resolve and go to her. That he’d just take her in his arms and tell her all the thoughts roiling in the sea of his mind, but--

But he hadn’t. He’s taken one look at her and, without even a pang of guilt, left her there. A real hero.

“Zen.” She says his name so firmly, so seriously, that his head jerks up, gaze tangling with hers. “You don’t want to be on the sidelines. You don’t want to be the general hiding being his troops. You want to be out there, Rex Tyrannis shoulder-to-shoulder with Redwood Dancer. And you could be.”

It’s his breath that’s rasping, the death rattle of the man he’s let himself be these past few years. “How?”

There’s not an ounce of hesitation in her when she says. “You have to choose to move forward.”

And cozy up in the cockpit with that asshole. He thinks about that grin, cocked with a confidence he’s never been in the neighborhood of having, and...

It’s so familiar that his double vision makes his head pound. “I can’t work with that-- Obi. I won’t.”

“I know that...” Her lips press together, bursting apart with a pop. “I know there’s no limit to the amount of people a ranger could potentially drift with, but there’s something...special when you find the right one. That there’s something right about it than can’t ever be replaced.”

He stares, head galloping in his chest. She shouldn’t know that-- there’s no way she could. Most rookies out of the academy just drift successfully once, and that’s it-- that’s their partner, for better or worse, like marrying the first kid you kiss. There’s exceptions-- emergencies, injury, irreconcilable differences-- but even though this job has a high turnover...rangers rarely die alone. There’s not enough people for a paper.

“Yeah, I’ve...heard that too.” Probably from the same mouth she did, though it seems Mitsuhide’s polished the speech since he last gave it. To him, at least.

“I understand that you have a vision of who you want beside you in the pod,” Shirayuki presses, voice growing tighter, more tense with every word. “But Atri’s gone.”

Every drop of blood in him turns to ice. “Atri?”

Her breath hisses out through her teeth, relief slumping her shoulders. “I know no one can be him, but--”

“You think this is about Atri?” A giggle bubbles up from him, bitter on his tongue. “I’ve been sitting here for weeks-- no, months! And you think all this, the whole reason I won’t climb in a jaeger with just anyone off the street is because of Atri?”

Every corner of her face lost. “Isn’t it?”

“No, I...” He pinches the bridge of his nose, like it might stem the pounding of his heart behind his brow. This whole time he’d been so careful, trying to be understood for once, to let someone see him instead of his mistakes--

But he should have known; as long as his brother is obsessed with sending him an endless parade of nobodies which he sits behind a desk, it’ll only be his hang ups hung out for everyone to rifle through.

“I should go,” he finally manages, levering himself to his feet. The room spins, his heartbeat thrumming in his ears, but he can’t stay here, not when she thinks-- when she’s always thought--

“Zen,” she murmurs, voice muffled by distance. “Are you all right?”

--That he’s pathetic. “Yeah.” He stumbles to the door, swinging it open. “I just need to--”

And of course, standing right there is that asshole, hand half-raised to knock.

“Boss,” he breathes, clearly stunned. “I, uh, didn’t think you’d be...”

The awkwardness in the office is palpable, so thick that he might as well be moving through molasses. Before this guy showed up, he’d though he had half a chance; he was practically the only one outside of K-Science that would even look at her, and his sessions always felt like more, but now--

Well, it’s no wonder he didn’t stand half a chance next to him, if she thought he was waiting for Atri.

“Don’t worry about it.” Zen pushes back him, shoulder clipping his. Or at least near enough to claim the feat. “I’d hate to keep you two from your--” date-- “dinner plans.”

Shirayuki’s breath gasps from her. “Zen, wait, we’re not--”

“It’s fine,” he lies, every muscle tense where he stands, fighting the urge to look back. “A couple of things are clearer now.”

It’s not just her. They all think he’s waiting for him, that one day he might stroll back in here like nothing happened, and Zen--

“Please.” Shirayuki’s voice trembles, and even if he’s not looking, he knows she’s at the door, vibrating in its frame. “Let’s just finish the session.”

-- and Zen’s been giving them nothing else to work with. All these years, looking like a kid stood up on prom night.

“No, I just remembered there’s something I’ve got to do.” He forces a smile on his face, giving her a bare hint of it as he peeks over his shoulder. “I’ll see you next week.”

It kills him how much hope lights in her eyes. “Next week?”

“That our appointment, isn’t it?” he says, light tone limping. “Unless I see you around the dome before then.”

“Right,” she breathes, cheeks flushed at both corners of her smile. Obi’s watching her, concern writ large in his eyes, and well-- maybe he’s not as much of an asshole as Zen wanted to believe. “Until then.”

He gets halfway down the hall, before Obi calls out, “Hey, boss...”

It’s clear when he looks back that Obi hadn’t meant to speak, but now that he has, he clear his throat, giving himself a visible shake.

“You could come with us,” he says, hesitant. “If you wanted.”

It’s an olive branch, one he doesn’t deserve. One he should take, if he wants all this to heal over without a scar. But he’s not ready for that, not yet.

“No.” He shakes head. “I wasn’t joking about having something I got to do. Go enjoy yourselves.”

This is a terrible idea.

He knows it the entire time he’s walking, the anxiety cresting the second he sees the plate on the door, engraved and letters painted black: IZANA WISTERIA. MARSHAL.

“Well,” Izana hums from his desk. “Are you going pace outside my office all day, or are you planning to come in?”

Zen lets out a rush of breath and pushes the door open the rest of the way.

“You win,” he says, all in a rush. “I’ll do it. I’ll give him another chance.”

“I think at this point, he’s giving you another chance,” Izana tells him, barely glancing up from his pile of papers. “But...I’ll arrange it.”

He nearly says, I figured you’d have it all arranged already, but bites it back. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure. And Zen.” His brother looks up, capping his pen calmly before he folds his hands over the desk. “It’s not me who wins. It’s humanity.”

“Yeah,” he breathes, meeting that steely gaze. “But I’m not doing it for them.”

For once, his brother doesn’t have anything to say.

It’s Obi who’s locked in first this time.

His cheeky smile is already waiting when Zen steps on deck, body gripped by Rex Tyrannis’s hydraulics when he throws him a wink. “Second time’s the charm, right Your Highness?”

“Third time,” Zen mutters, keying in his code. “It’s third time’s the charm.”

“Right, but you were top of your class.” A guy like Obi shouldn’t be so comfortable when he’s got twenty tons pinning him in place, not when he’s got a face just asking to be hit. “So we can shave one of those off, right?”

“Depends.” His mouth twitches. “Where did you rank?”

Obi’s grin grows stiff enough to float. “I think you’d say I’m a natural talent.”

“That bad huh?”

A laugh saws out of him, raw in the loud silence of the pod. “You have no idea.”

“I think I could take a guess.” The hydraulics hug Zen tight; even lifting to his arm to the panel is a chore. “Ready?”

“For you?” Obi’s mouth stretches into a leer.  For once, he feels like he’s in on the joke. “Any time.”

Don’t chase the rabbit. It’s Obi’s voice that says it; not the way he had before, serious and concerned, a scolding and a reminder. No, this one is a laugh restrained, sing-song. One pill makes you big and one makes you small.

There’s a faint riff of guitar, and Zen’s about to tell him to can it, that putting trash in the drift just clogged up the flow, but--

But between one breath-- one blink and the next, he’s lost in the tide, rolling through his memories rudderless. When a hand grips his shoulder and--

“I’m ready.” Zen’s always too honest, too eager but he’s young here, younger than he ever remembers being wearing the badge. “To pick up the legacy. To be what father meant us to be.”

The memory runs true, his younger self still chatting away with Shidnote, unaware that his whole world’s about to be cut off at the knees. But he’s not watching that now, he’s watching the way shadows crawl across his brother’s face, a storm front that appears and vanishes in the moments no one looks.

“About that.” Izana settles his hand on the desk, but the drumming is no longer bored but...nervous. An asynchronous beat that runs at the speed of his thoughts. “I meant to tell you. I’m being promoted.”

“Promoted” The word still kicks his legs out from under him, still knocks the wind out of his lungs as efficiently as any punch to the gut. “But I thought we would--”

“They want me in a command capacity now that Mother’s taking over Anchorage.” Izana won’t look at him. The man who has built his career on being able to stare down Orochi in Sagami Bay can’t bear to look him in the eye. “I’m being taken off active duty.”

“But--” He looks between them. “But--”

“But--”

“But--”

The memory stutters. It’s him, he’s the one who’s pushing away. He’d always thought he couldn’t give this to someone, to some guy right off the street, someone who might pity him, but it’s-- it’s him. He can’t look at this. He can’t face failure another time.

And he doesn’t know how to stop.

Hey. Obi’s voice is too close, but he’s just an outline in the drift, blues and grays fuzzing between misfiring synapses. Hey, we don’t have to watch this.

They do. They have to, if he’s going to get through this.

Right. There’s no way for Obi to sigh here, where there’s no air, but he does, long and loud. It sounds...different. Almost...feminine. I have worse. Want to see me wet the bed when I was--?

The words fuzz before they can continue. Go ahead, Obi says, sounding like himself. Take as much time as you need. It’s not like we have clocks here.

Zen can’t nod here, not without a body, but he breathes, one solid in and out--

“It’s supposed to be us.” Even with the distance of time, every word is carves straight from his flesh, laid out on a platter for his brother to see. “We’re supposed to carry on the legacy.”

“Shidnote will continue on in his current capacity,” Izana explains, bored, as if he didn’t even speak. “He’s served me well. I’m sure you’ll both be sufficiently compatible.”

“But--” Zen grits his teeth. “It’s supposed to be us. Why are you giving me an excuse--?

He blinks. He never said that. He’d been thinking it the whole way to his bunk, but in the moment it had only been a yes sir. I understand, sir.

Then why--

“It’s an excuse.” The shine’s all worn off Atri’s grin, baring the raw edge beneath. “That’s all I’ve ever been to you.”

Scrap litters the floor at his feet; he’s never known what jaeger-grade parts sold for on the black market, but he knows it��s not pocket money. This is a small fortune if someone knew where to sell it.

Which clearly Atri does.

“You’re going to blame me?” Zen’s laugh limps with bitterness. “I catch you with stolen goods, and it’s my--?”

“It’s not stolen, it’s salvage,” Atri snaps, snatching a length of steel from his hands. “It’s not like they’re using it.”

A lie-- there’s not a shred of steel or wire that’s wasted in the dome. Jaegars come with a price tag that only governments can pay, and any corner that can be safely cut on maintenance is considered savings passed onto tax payers. There’s no way he can’t know it, not after six months, but--

He doesn’t care. He never did.

“This is why you agreed to be my copilot.” Every word aches as he births them from his lips, a truth that cuts even as he speaks it. “You didn’t care about protecting your friends. You just wanted access to parts.”

Atri shrugs, the barest twitch of his shoulders. “I never said I gave a single fuck about all that hero shit. You just assumed I did, because you do.”

“But the drift...” His breath wheezes, the way it did when he was a kid, before his dad paid for all that to be fixed. “How did you...?”

“I just thought about the stuff you cared about. Friends. Kaiju. Me.” Atri’s grin turns smug. “Some of us don’t wear our heart on our sleeves, Wisteria.”

Wow. Obi’s outline fuzzes as he circles behind Atri, a single brow raised. He’s a real fucknut, huh?

His memories are jumbles, him-now and him-then all tumbled together until his first instinct is to jump to Atri’s defense. He may not be an academy-trained ranger, someone who has a lifetime worth of experience in a simulator, but put him in Rex Tyrannis and he’ll--

Steal the toilet cover? Obi offers, mouth canting into that insufferable grin. The one that always reminded him of--

Ah.

Obi darts a glance to where Atri stands frozen beside him. Jeeze, you really know how to hit a guy where he lives. You think I look like this asshole?

Just the grin, really. He’s almost a head taller, broader in the shoulders, and Asian besides. Better looking too--

Obi’s smile stretches into a leer. You don’t say, bossman?

Maybe Atri’s right. He’s got to get better about what he thinks about in the drift. Especially with someone this insufferable around.

If anything, Obi’s more amused. So it’s this guy though, he’s whole hold up you have with me? It’s not--

Against his will, Atri springs to life, mouth curled into his nastiest sneer when he says “I don’t know why you’re acting so betrayed. After all, you only wanted me to get back at the Marshal, and I played my part, didn’t I? I’m sure he’d jump in the pod if that meant he could be rid of me.”

“That’s not--” true, he should say. He can’t though, not when he’s not this-Zen, when he’s just looking out from his eyes, straight into Obi’s.

“Yeah.” There’s no spit to swallow in the drift, but he does anyway, a force of habit. “It is.”

The memory fuzzes away from him, and it’s just them now, two men braced in the Conn-pod, staring at each other through their visors.

“Right hemisphere, calibrated.” Zen blinks, watching as his hand opens and closes, the robotic voice’s dulcet tones washing over him.

“I never wanted this, you know,” he murmurs, “not if it wasn’t with my brother. That’s how it was supposed to be, me and him versus the kaiju.”

“Left hemisphere, calibrated.” His arms seem to move on his own, and it’s strange how he can’t keep the smile off his face this time. It feels good, moving like this again.

“No,” he breathes. “It was supposed to be me and him versus the world.”

“Ready to activate the jeager.“

Obi’s arms lift, a fighting stance to mirror his. It’s easy, so easy. Easier than he ever thought it could be. “What changed?”

He’d shrug, if the hydraulics would let him, but this isn’t Redwood Dancer. “Seemed like a shitty reason not to save the world.”

“Calibration complete.”

Obi grins, teeth shining bright under the lights of his visor. “Doc tell you that?”

Zen laughs. “Pretty much.”

“She’s got a gift,” Obi agrees, hands moving in sync with his. “And it’s making you feel like an asshole.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Looks like you jokers are getting along,” Kiki deadpans through their helmets. “How do you feel about taking Rex out for a drag?”

“After being cramped under this dome for months, Princess?” Obi drawls, tossing him a conspiratorial wink. “It’d be my pleasure.”

“Just give us a sec!” It’s been a long time since Zen’s talked much with the crew in CIC, but he recognizes that voice-- Yuzuri, one of Shirayuki’s friends. The peppy one with the cute accessories. The one that told him she’d give him cement shoes if he made her cry. “Let’s see if we can get you off your leash.”

He’d always liked her. Hopefully the feeling’s mutual, since she’s right next to the plug.

“Hey, boss.”

Zen blinks, glancing across the cockpit. “Yeah?”

“I know Atri was supposed to be a big fuck you to His Majesty, but...” He hesitates, thoughtful. “You drifted with the Big Guy for a while after that. Why?”

“Ah--”

It’s impossible not to think of it, the siren rising in the air, the men running past them, voices drowned out by the drone.

“I’ll do it,” he says, glaring up at the man across from him. “At least you know you’re just a seat warmer.”

“Zen--”

He blinks, the memory stuttering beneath him. That’s not what Mitsuhide called him then, that wasn’t until after--

“Zen.”

That’s not inside the memory, that’s inside his helmet. “Mitsuhide?”

“You’re out of alignment.”

He shakes his head, uncomprehending. “What do you--?”

“You’re out of alignment.” He repeats, each words strained. “You both chased the rabbit, and...Obi went straight down the rabbit hole.”

It doesn’t make any sense. “But I--”

“You have to go get him,” Mitsuhide says, dire. “He’s pointing the plasma cannon at Mission Control.”

[anna-justice]

Lost or Found - 24

Summary: As Jay, Hailey, Kim, Adam and Kevin start their junior year in the wake of a tragic summer, the past year of their lives comes back to haunt them. If you enjoyed Pretty Little Liars, this is for you! *UPSTEAD/BURZEK High School AU

...

24 - Evermore  ...

“Your dad should have killed you when he had the chance…”

Hailey whimpered, her eyes clenched shut and beads of sweat appearing on her forehead.

“So you want to play hero one more time?” 

She flinched in her sleep, her heart beating out of her chest, so fast that she thought it was going to explode. 

“That works for me.” 

Hailey shot up, screaming. The last thing she saw was the barrel of a gun. She clawed at her chest, trying to get a good breath. “Hailey?” Someone yelled, and then right after, her Aunt appeared in front of her. “Hailey, it’s okay.” Trudy reached out to grab her hand, but Hailey pulled it back, looking at her with scared eyes. 

It had been a month since she had heard those words muttered aloud, but they plagued her dreams frequently. 

The two weeks following that day, all five of them took turns rotating through the police station. Everyday there were new questions, more people to explain things to, more statements to clarify, it was never ending. Then, it just stopped. There was nothing else they could do, they had to wait for trial. And in the meantime, Erin was placed in a psychiatric hold facility, and her lawyers were defending her actions as a symptom as psychosis.

It bothered them all, that technically she was free, all because they could blame her attempted murder on a psychotic break. Especially when Kelly Severide was looking at time. A few days after, two detectives showed up at Hailey’s house, wanting a full recount of the last five months, and that included the night that she was attacked. When Severide was questioned, he had no alibi and he confessed to strangling Hailey. His excuse was that he was threatened the same way that the rest of them were, only in person. He claimed that he knew Erin was alive the whole time, but she threatened to kill his mom and sister if he didn’t cooperate. 

Unfortunately, the only way to corroborate the story for a jury is to prove Erin mentally competent, meaning she was capable of carrying out her threats. To all involved, even Kelly, it was clear that she knew what she was doing, she was a mastermind, but to everyone on the outside, they were just a bunch of teenagers wrapped up in a murder. 

The girl that everyone thought was Erin still hadn’t been identified, they had to dig up the casket for the second time. The only way they were able to ID it the first time was by the previous fracture and bracelet, but there are a lot of people in the Chicago area that have broken their left wrist. 

So, with no new information and the date for the trial to begin still months away, they all lived life normally. Well, as normal as it could be after everything they went through. And normal for Hailey meant waking up every night screaming. 

Trudy looked at her husband, who was standing in the doorway. They shared a look, a very familiar one. They repeated the same steps every night, like some cruel rehearsed dance. Trudy waited patiently for Hailey to calm down, just seated on the floor next to her. “Hailey, sweetie, you’re safe.” She repeated. 

Every night it was the same, Hailey would snap out of whatever daze she was in and apologize profusely. “I’m sorry, I got scared…” She started.

“Shhh,” Trudy said, placing a hand on her leg, “It’s okay.” 

Hailey nodded, swallowing hard. “I’m good, you all can go back to sleep.” She said, glancing at her uncle. 

Trudy just nodded, she learned many nights ago not to fight her on it, “Alright. Goodnight Hailey, we love you.” She said, squeezing her shoulder. 

“Love you too.” Hailey said, watching them retreat back to their room. They left the door open like they always did, Hailey sighed rolling over and grabbing her phone. She sent a quick text to her boyfriend. 

Hailey:      :(

It was a system that they started a few weeks ago. The first few nights Jay would stay up with her on the phone, or she would call him after Trudy and Randy finally left, but the lack of sleep began to play a part in their relationship. So, they decided that every time Hailey had a nightmare (or Jay, he wasn’t clean of them) they would text the other a frowny face, so that in the morning they would know what the other had gone through the night before without having to talk about it. It has proved to be useful.

Hailey laid down again, willing herself to close her eyes, but she couldn’t. Sleep was too vulnerable, so she laid there awake, just waiting for the sun to rise on (hopefully) a better day. 

…

“What do you mean you haven’t picked out a costume?” Kim asked, as Jay slammed his door shut. Like every morning, they were all crowded around his truck, waiting until the last minute to head to class. The gossip still hadn’t died down, they were still the topic of every conversation, so they avoided it as much as they could. 

Hailey shrugged. “I thought we weren’t dressing up.” She said, looking up at her boyfriend, who nodded in agreement. Halloween was tomorrow, and of course Kim had plans for all of them.

“No, I said we weren’t dressing up as the characters from scooby doo…” Kim said, giving Adam a pointed look. 

Adam held up his hands in surrender, “Like I said, I’m sorry, it’s too soon.” He said, stifling a laugh. 

Kevin rolled his eyes, “Yeah, you all know I’d have to be scooby. And I’m not dressing up like a dog.” He snapped. 

“But Kev,” Adam said, faking a frown. “I thought you were my dawg.” Kevin glared at him, faking a punch as Adam jumped back. 

“Anyway,” Kim started, looking back at Hailey and Jay, and ignoring the antics behind her. “I promised Stella we would all be at her party tomorrow night, you guys will be the only people without a costume.” 

Hailey sighed, “Kim, we will get costumes, I promise.” Kim opened her mouth, but the warning bell cut her off. Hailey smiled, grabbing Jay’s hand. “We’ll see you guys later.” She said, before pulling him away. 

“Please tell me you have costume ideas,” Jay said quietly. 

“Nope.” They rounded the corner, Jay leaning down and stealing a kiss before they entered their classroom. Criminal justice was a little harder to sit through than it was before, but somehow Jay had managed to get his grade up. 

They took their normal seats in the back of the class, waiting for the teacher to begin. “I have an idea,” Jay said, leaning on his hand. 

“Okay?” Hailey said cautiously. 

“I’ll be a firefighter, and you be a Dalmatian.” He said, wiggling his eyebrows. 

Hailey scoffed, “No.” 

“Okay. You be the firefighter and I’ll be the Dalmatian.” He said, smirking.

Hailey shook her head, “Try again.” Jay fake pouted, retreating back to his half of the shared desk. 

Finally, their teacher decided to start class, cutting their conversation off for the time being. After about 30 minutes of notes, he passed out an assignment, leaving them to work on their own. Jay turned to face her, smiling. “I’ve got another idea.” He said, Hailey gave him a pointed look. “Squints and the lifeguard from the sandlot.” 

“Why? So every time someone asks us who we are you get to lay on the ground and make me kiss you?” She questioned. 

“Exactly.” He deadpanned. 

“Jay-”

“Okay, okay.” He said, laughing. He loved it when she got all riled up. “Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, cause you’re so short-”

“Jay!” She said, smacking his bicep. 

He laughed harder, “Okay, in all seriousness...we can be Jack and Rose from the titanic…” He watched Hailey’s face slowly morph into slight agreeance, “And Kev could be the iceberg.” 

“I’m done with you.” Hailey said shortly, stifling her own laugh. 

Jay laughed at his own joke, watching his girlfriend pretend to be aggravated with him. “You love me, you know it.” 

“Unfortunately…” Hailey said under her breath. She took a deep breath, “What about Danny and Sandy from Grease?” 

Jay smirked, “You in leather pants? Perfect.” 

“You’re hopeless.” 

…

The next day, Hailey sat in Kim’s bedroom getting ready. They had about an hour before the boys were supposed to come pick them up. Kim and Adam were going as Romeo and Juliet, while Hailey and Jay had finally settled on Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. Kevin had grouped up with some of the boys from his team, they were going as zombie football players, very original…

“Kim, you’re going to have to do this.” Hailey said, laughing in defeat. 

Kim smiled, taking over for her. She was waiting for her to ask for help, she’d been struggling to french braid her hair for almost twenty minutes. “I got it.” They sat there for a while in silence, Kim carefully laying pieces of blonde hair over the others, she glanced at Hailey in the mirror, noticing the blank look on her face. “How are you doing?”

Hailey’s head snapped up to meet her eyes, she caught her off guard. “Uh,” She shrugged, “I’m okay, I guess…” 

Kim scoffed, shaking her head. “I’ve said that word so many times recently that I’m not even sure it’s a word anymore.” 

“Yeah…” Hailey said, letting her thoughts wander. “I get that.” And she did, it was like she used the word as a shield. It was her response to everything, and she wasn’t okay, not that it was really a secret. None of them were okay, but saying it made it feel like they were. And deception was something worth clinging onto. 

“You know, we never talked about-” 

“We don’t need to.” Hailey said, cutting her off. 

Kim eyed her cautiously, “Okay.” She wanted to talk, but she didn’t feel like she had any right to push Hailey to. Not after what happened. “Done.” She said, a few minutes later, taking a step back to admire her work.

“Thanks,” Hailey said with a genuine smile, picking up the jar of flower clips they had bought that morning. “You think I should just put these everywhere?” 

Kim nodded, “Yeah, I think so.” She reached down, clicking shuffle on a playlist, a random Taylor Swift song playing. They were both done talking. 

An hour later, the two of them were sitting in Kim’s kitchen talking to her mom when Jay and Adam arrived. Adam just let himself in the front door, Jay choked on a laugh as he waltzed in like he owned the place. 

The boys appeared in the kitchen, “Honey, I’m home.” He said, passing Kim and hugging her mom. Kim rolled her eyes as they all laughed, Jay’s hand finding Hailey’s back like it always did. He was so happy, even though life was still crazy, he was ridiculously happy. Watching Hailey smile and Adam joke around like he used to (before they used it as a distraction) was so nice, and familiar and just so damn good. 

Hailey peered up at him, grinning as he pecked her lips. “Alright, let’s get a picture so you all can get out of here.” Claire said, ushering them together. Jay stood next to Adam, both of them holding their girlfriends securely against their waists. They all smiled brightly, relaxing after the click. 

They quickly bid their goodbyes, making their way out to Jay’s truck. Hailey slid easily into the passenger seat, despite her nude heels (that she was already regretting), while Adam and Kim got in the back. They pulled out of the driveway, and somehow Adam ended up with aux cord. Somewhere in between an old Maroon 5 song and the Weekend, Jay’s hand found hers on the center console. 

Hailey looked down at it and smiled. It was a simple thing that they did every single time they rode together, but it really symbolized how much things had changed. Hailey thought back to the day that he kept his eyes trained on the road, back when she cut him off when he tried to apologize. It was only two months ago, but they were different, everything was different, everything was better. 

 Jay followed her gaze to their conjoined hands, mimicking her smile. She didn’t have to say anything, he knew exactly what she was thinking. Part of him wishes he could go back and stay with her then, he felt like they had wasted so much time, but the other part of him knew that they were better for it. Neither of them were ready for what they have now, then. And what they have was worth the wait. 

Finally they reached their destination, Jay having the park pretty far away due to how many people were already there. They got out, Jay rounding the truck to help Hailey down, even though she hadn’t needed it in a long time. The four of them headed towards the decent sized house, they could hear the music thumping from outside. Hailey slipped her hand in Jay’s, gripping his forearm. 

Jay noticed the look of discomfort on her face, leaning down. “Hey, you okay?” He asked, eying her. 

Hailey nodded, holding on a little tighter. “Yeah, just don’t want to get lost in the crowd.” Jay nodded, believing her lie. She couldn’t really explain it, but she had a terrible feeling in her stomach and the thought of being lost in a sea of people made her want to throw up. Even though it was over, Hailey still found herself looking over her shoulder and watching out for her. And even though all of that meant she was nowhere near being in a party mood, she wasn’t going to bring everyone else down, they all needed a fun night. 

They made their way through the crowded makeshift dance floor, and found Kevin in a living area near the back of the house where he was sitting with Stella, Conner, Matt and Sylvie. “Hey guys,” He called, jumping up and clapping Adam’s back. 

Stella stood, hugging Kim tightly, “I’m glad you guys could make it.” 

Kim squeezed her, “Me too.”

Stella backed away, touching Hailey’s arm affectionately and giving her a kind smile that she returned. “I know it’s kind of crazy,” Stella laughed, “If you need something or just a break, the keys to the upstairs doors are hidden right under the doors, just inside the rooms.” She glanced at the obvious couples, winking. “I trust you guys.” 

They all nodded, Kim blushing, a chorus of “great” and “thanks” sounding. The group dispersed, the five of them huddling up. “Obviously Hailey and I are gonna stick together, if we get lost, meet back here at midnight and we’ll head out?” Jay suggested.

“Sounds good,” Kev said, nodding.

Adam agreed too. “That works for me.” 

That works for me…

Hailey flinched at those words, instinctively squeezing her eyes shut. Her breath caught in her throat. The image of a pulled gun flashing through her brain. She grimaced, trying to push the thoughts away. “Hailes…” She took another deep breath, doing everything in her power to keep her fear at bay. “Hailes.” Someone said, harsher, snapping her out of her daze. 

“Yeah?” She asked quickly. 

Kim eyed her cautiously, “I asked if you wanted a water…”

“Oh,” Hailey shook her head, “No, I’m good, thanks though.” She watched as Kim and Adam slowly disappeared into the crowd, her eyebrowed cinched together. 

Jay stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the rest of the room, “Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked, concern clear in his bright green eyes. 

Hailey nodded vigorously, “I’m good, I promise.” She said, his face didn’t change. He didn’t believe her. Hailey reached up, pulling him to her level and attaching their lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck as she deepened it, pulling him even closer. Jay did his best not to get lost in the kiss, but with her it was so hard. She pulled away slowly, peering up at him. “Jay, I’m okay.” Kim was right, it didn’t sound like a word anymore. 

Jay sighed, admitting defeat. “Okay.” He laced their hands together, leaning down and kissing her slowly before guiding her to the dance floor. They stood near the edge, Jay’s hand sitting on her hips as they swayed in sync to the fast music. They danced for a while before some of Jay’s teammates interrupted them. 

Hailey stood securely at his side as they spoke, absently listening to the trashy rap music that was playing loudly throughout the room. “Fuck, shit, bitch…” The sound of a gun being cocked rang through the speakers and Hailey screamed. Suddenly the eyes of everyone around her staring at her. She was frozen in place, forcing the terrible memories away, but she couldn’t. 

“Hailey.” Jay said, but her feet had a mind of their own and she was running towards the staircase, her lungs burning, she couldn’t get in a good breath. “Hailey!” Jay called after her, not even bothering to say goodbye to his team before taking off. 

Hailey booked it up the stairs, dropping to the ground in front of the first door she saw, grasping aimlessly for the key. She slumped against the door, tears streaming down her face as she fought to breathe. Jay booked it towards her, crouching down and finding the key easily. He unlocked the door, then swept his hysterical girlfriend off the floor, carrying her into the room and setting her on the bed. She was still heaving in front of him, and Jay placed two hands on either side of her face. “Hailey, Hailey look at me.” He said, but her eyes stayed trained on his chest. “Baby, you’re safe, look at me, please.” She clenched her eyes shut, more tears falling down her face. When she opened them again, they met his and she launched herself into his arms. 

Jay held her to him, rocking them gently as she cried into his neck. “I-I thought-” She stuttered, sobs wracking her body. 

“I know, I know.” He said, trying to calm her. 

“I thought it was over…” She said, and Jay felt his heart clench in his chest. 

He ran his hand through her braided hair, no doubt destroying it. “It is, it’s all over, you’re safe. We’re safe.” For some reason that made her cry harder, maybe because she hadn’t for the past month, she had been bottling up her feelings to protect herself and everyone else. Because even though she was, she hadn’t felt safe in a long time. 

Hailey pulled away after a long time, utterly exhausted. Jay couldn’t take the look of defeat on her safe, she looked so tired, so broken, that it scared him. How could he not have known how much pain she was in? 

She couldn’t bear to look at him, so she kept her gaze fixed on her lap. He placed his hand on her thigh, and Hailey laid one on top of it. She sniffled, using her free hand to wipe the never ending tears from her eyes. “I’m okay.”

…

The following Monday, Hailey sat in the passenger seat of Jay’s truck. After the events of Saturday night, Jay had no choice but to loop in Trudy and Randall, he had to after he had failed to do so before. They spent the rest of the weekend convincing Hailey to see someone, to talk about everything they had been through. 

It was probably the trauma left over from her parents, but the stigma that therapy made you weak was ingrained in Hailey’s mind, and convincing her to make an appointment was no easy task. 

That’s how they ended up sitting in the parking lot of a private practice right after school, Hailey’s leg bouncing nervously up and down. Jay lifted their intertwined hands off the center console, kissing the back of hers. “I’m going to be here waiting, all I ask is that you go in there and try.” He said, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. 

Hailey smiled softly, nodding. She leaned across the console and kissed him slowly, hoping that she was able to portray just how much love she had for him and trust she had in him through it. Jay pulled away, taking her in. “I love you, Hailey Upton.” 

“I love you, Jay Halstead.” She said. 

“Now, go kick some ass.” He said and she laughed, opening the truck door. She shut it, giving him one last look before walking inside the doors. 

She sat down in one of the waiting room chairs after signing in, a few minutes later an older man with big glasses popped his head out of the back. “Hailey?” 

She stood, “Yes sir.”

The man smiled, “Come with me.” He led her back to an office, gesturing for her to sit on the couch while he sat in the chair across from her. “I’m Dr. Charles, but you can call me Daniel or Dan, or really whatever makes you comfortable.” He explained. 

Hailey nodded, shifting nervously. “So, how does this work?” She asked.

“However you want it to, we can talk or not talk about anything you want.” He said, leaning back in his chair. 

“Okay,” Hailey glanced at the ground, “The-There’s a lot…” 

“That’s okay.” 

Hailey grimaced, finally looking at him. “Where do I start?” She asked.

Dr. Charles smiled. “How about the beginning?”

Hailey sighed, taking a few deep breaths, ready to start confronting all the demons that she had been fighting for so long. 

“Tell me everything.”

...

A/N: This is long but please, please, please read it!!

First, this is the end of this story, but it is not THE end! There will be a sequel and if you want to see a sneak peak, you can find it HERE. I am so so excited to continue exploring this version of these characters, and don’t worry, the next installment will be just as exciting as this one! 

Second, thank you so so so so much to everyone who has shown love to and supported this story. It really means the world to me, you have no idea. This has been such an amazing experience and I have learned so much from writing this, so thank you so much for reading. You guys are truly incredible, and writing has helped me through a tough time in my life. I’m going to say thank you a million time, but thank you, thank you, thank you <3

This story evolved so much lol: in the beginning I had no plan, and then it changed like five times, and we ended up here, so here’s a few things that didn’t make it in.

Nadia was supposed to die in chapter 19, but I decided against it…

I debated Kevin and Stella getting together, don’t hate me for this ahaha

I almost made Kim lose her hearing, but I wasn’t sure I could do the storyline justice with everything else going on

I debated killing Adam (I’M SORRY, i’m sorry…)

And finally (cause you don’t need to know all of my secrets) I ALMOST broke up Upstead at the end

Anyway, there’s some behind the scenes action if you’re interested. 

Back to the point: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SUPPORTING ME AND THIS STORY, I LOVE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART, and i cannot wait to embark on this next journey together!!

So much love,

Anna

@lissethsrojas @puckluck28 @fuckyeahkillianemma @chilly7188 @thebigapocalypsewolf @karihighman @ruzek-halstead @anotheronechicagobog @snowwhite013 @tracysupton @angelsjedi @carissalizz​

[writinginthesecrettrees]

A Little Off

Things are a little off with Sammy. He’s been secretive, and at first Dean thinks it’s normal kid stuff. Puberty or something - Sam’s twelve, and they just had an awkward talk about wet dreams and “just wake me up so we can change the sheets, all right? I don’t wanna sleep in it.” 

(sam blushing furiously as he nodded, red on his cheeks like the girls dean sweet talks into the backseat and out of their panties, makes dean’s belly hot with anger at his baby brother for making him think these things)

Maybe Dean could believe that Sammy’s just exploring himself a bit, looking for privacy they can’t find in motels and shared beds. But there’s more to it than Sammy disappearing after school, coming back just before dinner in a rush to finish his homework. There’s clothing, vanishing from Dean’s duffle and showing up the next day freshly washed. There’s Sam, watching him with dark eyes when he flirts with pretty girls.

(“please, dean, can’t you stay in and watch a movie with me? please?” sam’s voice high, begging the way a girl does when dean’s got his tongue on her clit and two fingers in her pussy and she’s begging for his dick and dean can’t stay in even though he wants to, wants to paint his baby brother with bruises for making him feel these things)

Dean usually sleeps late after a night out with a girl, likes to stay in bed long after he wakes up, thinks about soft breasts and intoxicating kisses when he pushes his hand down his pants and jerks himself lazily until he’s about to come, then finishes himself off in the shower thinking about falling asleep with his arms around Sam. But Sammy’s been acting off lately, and getting up early on weekends to sneak out of the motel without Dean. 

(little brother sneaking out like the girls dean talks into breaking their curfews - “my dad doesn’t let me date yet,” whispered between kisses under the school bleachers when dean’s already got his hand up under her bra - and how is dean supposed to keep sammy safe from the monsters of the world when he doesn’t know where he is)

It’s past noon when he finds Sam in a cornfield, stalks tall overhead rustling in the breeze. Sam’s got a bucket of water and a pile of Dean’s clothes, so focused on scrubbing at his shirt from last night he doesn’t notice Dean getting closer. And Dean’s so intent on Sammy that he doesn’t notice the hole dug in the soft ground, almost falls in. Sam’s got more than just Dean’s clothes from last night - got his date dead in the dirt, too. 

(oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck)

Sam hears him stumble, looks up at him like a deer caught in the headlights, like he used to when he was five and Dean caught him stealing Twinkies meant for Dean’s school snacks. The water in the bucket is stained pink and his hands are stained red and his mouth is opening and shutting like he’s trying to talk but no sound is coming out.

(girls gone missing just before they leave town and dean’s never thought twice about it but here’s one of them and her family’s gonna be looking for her - thank fuck they won’t be looking for him thank fuck he was her dirty secret - good girl didn’t want people knowing she was getting fucked by the bad boy who just blew into town - how many sammy?)

“Whatcha doing, Sammy?”

Sam’s shaking harder than the corn stalks over their heads, still won’t - can’t? - speak.

“Know you don’t like me going out with them, but isn’t this a bit… extreme?”

Sam’s eyes get wider, whites all around. “I-I’m just cleaning - I didn’t do this...”

Dean shakes his head. “Sammy. I caught you, literally red-handed. Wanna try again?”

(sammy shaking shaking shaking like a leaf and breathing fast, fast as the dead girl did last night when he was behind her with his hand on her neck and his dick in her pussy and her cheek pressed hard into the soft dirt of the cornfield and her hair, soft and long and brown and falling across everything, and her slender back, and the little gasps and grunts he fucks out of her are just like the sounds he wrings out of sammy when they wrestle.)

“How long have you been doing it, huh, Sammy? Killing the chicks I get off with? Why do you do it, Sammy?”

And Dean could keep going but Sam’s scrambled to his feet and he throws a shoe at Dean’s head. Kid’s got good aim, would have hit him if Dean hadn’t dodged. “I don’t, Dean! You do it! I just… just clean up after you.”

(tears in his eyes, like the tears in hers last night when he had her on her back in the dirt after she pushed him off and slapped him for saying the wrong name. “isn’t sammy your brother? you’re sick–” and she couldn’t say anything else because dean’s got his hands around her throat, squeezing tight while she claws at his arms but he never bothered to take his shirt off so she only gets flannel. “you don’t say his name,” he says, gets one hand free and slaps her hard.)

Dean reels, takes a step backwards, and Sam steps towards him. “I’ve been covering up for you for months! Months, Dean! Covering with Dad when he calls while you’re out screwing any girl who’ll have you, covering up all the… the blood, and mess, and god you don’t even try to hide the bodies and now you’re saying I did this? Screw you, Dean.”

Sam glares at him through his tears, stands with clenched fists and panting from his outburst.

(she panted just like that, when dean took his other hand off her throat after she stops struggling and her eyes started to roll up because she doesn’t get to die that easily, not when she saw the secret dark corners of his soul and was stupid enough to notice, panted beneath him and he’d fuck her again if he thought she was willing but it’s a point of pride that he doesn’t take anyone who isn’t begging for it. when she catches her breath, starts to try to wriggle away, he pulls his knife and slashes out, a deep cut across the throat spraying him with brilliant red blood. she’s already forgotten by the time he gets back in the car, leaves her body in the cornstalks and drives back to his bed and sammy.)

Memories of this girl and others are rushing in, filling his head with blood and weapons (once laughing, when he let her think she got away before taking aim and dropping her with a headshot at fifty feet, just like the zombies in the arcade that Sam begged him to go to) and through it all Sam withdrawing and clinging close all at once and fuck.

“Fuck!” Dean falls to his knees, hands tugging at his hair, and Sam squats down next to him, puts a hand whisper-soft on his back, somehow takes the weight when Dean falls into him and comes apart.

-

Things are a little off with Sammy, and the off part is Dean. It started months ago, Dean going off on another “date” and ignoring Sam flipping him off as he left, then coming home with his clothing covered in dirt and falling into bed, unaware. They left town in the morning, Dad calling just after sunrise, and Sam didn’t think about it until he saw the news a few days later - a girl found dead, strangled, and no one knew who did it except Sam remembered Dean pointing her out to him three days ago.

The next time Dean has a date, Sam sneaks out after him, steals a bike and pedals furiously through town to find his brother with a girl spread out beneath him in the backseat. Sam’s too far away to hear them, but he sees her writhing under his brother and he hates her, and when Dean suddenly sits upright and slams his fist into her face all Sam can feel is satisfaction and that sends him running, racing back to the motel to hide trembling under the blankets. Dean joins him not much later, falls into the bed and slings an arm across Sam’s waist before falling into a heavy sleep, and Sam lays awake until light peeks in around the curtains.

He can’t stay, has to know for sure, so he wriggles out from under Dean’s arm. Grabs Dean’s clothes from last night off the floor, and the rest of the laundry too, and shoves it all into a duffle before heading out. He finds the body left unhidden at the side of the road, and “fuck” it’s a long, hot trip, dragging her back into field far enough that no one will see him digging.  When he’s done, the sun is setting and there’s a bruised and battered body in a shallow grave, just deep enough that he was able to bury a roadkill rabbit above it in case the cops bring out dogs to search.

Dean shakes him and shakes him when he gets back, full dark outside and duffle full of clean clothes and all he can say when Dean asks where he’s been is “out.”

It becomes routine before long. Try to keep Dean in with him - that’s unchanged, but there’s new meaning in it now - and when that fails go out and cover up the inevitable. Pick a fight when Dad comments that he’s gotten better at digging up graves the next time they have a ghost to salt and burn. Try not to cry when Dean doesn’t kill the girl and she shows up at school the next day, looking smug and satisfied and then Dean takes her out the next night too, even though Sam begs him to stay in, watch a movie with him, anything. Does cry later, in the shower, trying to wash away the satisfaction he felt with every shovelful of dirt he dumped on her body when Dean slit her throat on the second date.

He’s in the middle of yet another clean-up, burying Dean’s last date where she died in a cornfield and scrubbing as much blood out of Dean’s clothes as he can before hitting the laundromat, when Dean finds him.

-

Things are very off with Dean. He can feel his mind unravelling, feel the earth crumbling away and the only real thing left is Sammy and Dean clings to him. Baby brother arms around him and Dean should pull away, that’s only allowed at night with the plausible deniability of sleep but he can’t move, can barely breathe, needs Sam to hold him, needs to know Sammy’s with him and won’t leave.

Whispers of “don’t leave” and “sorry” and “stay” fall between giant gulping breaths and Dean’s only half aware of saying anything.

“Never” and “I don’t care” and “always” are the replies, until Sam pulls back slightly, forces Dean’s head up out of his shoulder and presses their foreheads together and Dean falls silent, pulled out of his own head and all he can see is Sammy eyes.

“I’m glad they’re dead,” Sammy says and Dean starts to shake his head, but Sam grips him hard, fingers digging into his shoulders and the pain is grounding. “I hate them. Every girl you ever look at, every girl you think about, I hate them all and I’m glad you killed them. I just…” 

Sam slumps and his hands fall away from Dean. Dean whimpers at the loss.

“I just wish you’d, like, try to hide the bodies? Or wash up, or something. Do you know how exhausting it is?”

“... no?” 

“Well, it is. ‘Cause you can’t just dig the hole, you have to fill it up again and I swear most of the girls weigh more than I do so getting them in isn’t exactly a picnic and then I have to make sure there’s no evidence and wash your clothes and clean your knives and once I had to dig a bullet out of a girl’s brain, Dean, I had to go digging in her head for it–”

“Why d’you do it, Sammy?” 

“Why do you?”

Dean searches for something, anything other than the truth because Sammy might be okay with the murder but he won’t, he can’t be okay with the reason, and he opens his mouth to lie but it comes out true. “They aren’t you.”

Sam’s arms around his neck, soft lips pressed to his in a kiss that is technically terrible but perfect because it’s Sammy, mean that the truth is maybe not as terrible as he thought. Dean’s arms close around Sam, a hand stroking up to cup the back of his head and hold him in place.

Then Dean leans forward, tips them over so Sam’s beneath him, head pillowed by the mound of dirt that still needs to be shovelled over a dead girl, and Dean grins as he sets about teaching Sam the proper way to kiss.

(sammy under him, arching up as dean strokes over the roof of his mouth with his tongue, tastes like sweat and spit and heaven and better than any girl dean’s ever had and dean chases the sammy taste down the side of his neck. sammy’s hands tugging at his hair and a high whine coming from the throat dean nips at, and dean’s never burying his want in anyone but sammy ever again.)

-

Things are a little off with his sons, and John doesn’t know what and he’s scared to find out.

[tough-girl9]

Meat

Summary: Marianne suddenly finds herself faced with an uncomfortable truth about Bog. Also posted on AO3 and FFN.

"Haha, can't you do any better than that? I'm getting bored over here."

"Ha, you want better, tough girl? I'll give you better."

Marianne barely took to the air in time to avoid the head of Bog's staff as it slashed past her feet. She let out a breathy laugh. "Ooo, the big, bad king of the Dark Forest can't even hold his own against a fairy princess. I'm not impressed."

"Is that so?" The devilish smirk that crossed Bog's lips was the only warning before the goblin hurtled towards her, a mini hurricane of long limbs, wings, and whirling staff. Marianne parried the sudden onslaught and stepped backwards, suddenly on the defensive. Pressing his advantage, Bog whipped his staff out expertly, catching the tip of Marianne's sword against the amber centerpiece and twisting the blade out of her grasp. She lunged after it, but Bog looped the shaft of his staff behind her. Marianne suddenly found herself pinned, with Bog's staff pressing against her lower back and her hands flat against his chest.

Bog looked down at her, his smirk transforming to a fanged grin. "Well, well, well, what were you saying, princess?"

Marianne pushed vainly at the broad chest that her face was currently smooshed against. She growled in response to Bog's teasing and tried to step on his foot. He moved it.

"I think someone owes somebody an apology," he said, his voice rising in a teasing lilt.

"In your dreams, cockroach," Marianne growled. With that, she reached around his narrow waist and tickled him right in the sensitive spot between his wings.

Bog yelped and performed a little hop-skip-jump, nearly dropping his staff as he did so. It was enough to give Marianne an escape route. She darted away from him as his outraged shout followed. "Oo, I'm going to make you pay for that one, you dirty, little cheater!"

The sparring match became a short-lived game of chase around the throne room, short-lived both because the fairy and the goblin were already worn out from their fight and because Marianne rather fancied being caught. It was not long before a pair of lanky goblin arms caught Marianne around the waist, pulling her back, struggling and laughing, against his scaly chest once again. Bog exacted his revenge by tickling her sides and at the juncture of her wings until she was struggling for breath and wriggling helplessly in his arms.

"You don't seem to have much to say now, your highness," he chuckled, leaning over her and changing his playful tickles to languid strokes along her lower back and sides. Marianne relaxed and slipped her arms around his neck with a huffing sigh as he nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck and gently kissed her shoulder.

"If you two lovebugs are done, lunch is ready," a loud voice said directly behind them.

Bog nearly jumped out of his scales. "Moooom!" he snapped. "Bloody tree spirits, mom, how long have you been standing there watching us?"

Griselda waved a hand airily at them as she waddled back towards the dining hall. "Oh, don't 'mom' me. You're the one who chose to get all lovey-dovey in the middle of a very public throne room. And settle your scales, I spoke up as soon as I saw you."

Grumbling, Bog picked up his staff as Marianne retrieved her sword, and they both headed towards the dining hall.

Marianne still found herself amazed at the goblins' work. Only a little over a month after the collapse of the old castle, the new Dark Castle was habitable, with only the lower levels yet to finish. The sounds of digging and carving that usually echoed through the structure had ceased for the time being as the goblin workers took their noontime repose.

As they entered the dining hall, Bog moaned. "Ooo, that smell good. Dear skies, I'm hungry!"

Indeed, a strong smell that Marianne could not quite place suffused the room. It was a rich smell, heavy and earthy in a way that reminded Marianne vaguely of something, but she could not think what. She'd eaten at the Dark Castle only a handful of times though, and she was still getting used to goblin cuisine. Curiously, she scanned the table as she sat down across from Bog who had flopped eagerly onto his bone chair and was already filling up his plate.

The strange smell seemed to be emanating from the main dish, but Marianne had never seen anything like the dark brown loaf sitting on a huge tray in the middle of the table. It was not bread, nor fruit, and it had a glossy sheen to it that she could not place.

Bog had already cut off a large chunk of the brown loaf and dug into it eagerly, making little noises of appreciation around each mouthful. Marianne bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth. She didn't want to be rude to her hosts, and she had tried as best she could to be open and appreciative of Bog's culture since they had begun dating a month ago, but something about the strange food made her feel uneasy. Instead, she took several stuffed mushrooms and a large spoonful of creamy truffle, fennel, and wood sorrel casserole, the latter of which she had tried on a previous visit and approved of so heartily that Griselda had insisted on sending the recipe home with her.

Neither Bog nor Griselda had said anything, but Marianne felt a bit guilty for not even trying the main dish. It wasn't like she was a picky eater – just the opposite in fact (her father still occasionally brought up that time she'd nearly poisoned herself with pokeweed berries). She could at least try a little bit of it, and who knew, maybe she might even like it.

She was just leaning over to reach for the knife to cut herself off a portion when Bog leaned back with a long, satisfied sigh and tossed something down on his plate. Automatically, Marianne glanced over at him. And froze when she saw what it was that he had just discarded.

For a moment, she didn't recognize what the hard, white object was, with bits of brown still clinging to it and light scores across it from Bog's fangs. But then she realized what it was that she was looking at.

It was a bone.

The stuff on the table, the stuff Bog was pulling towards himself for a second helping, the stuff she'd almost reached for herself, it was the flesh of something that had once been living.

Nausea hit Marianne like a punch in the stomach.

In her head, she had known that goblins ate meat. All one had to do was look at Bog to see that he was a predator through and through. But somehow, the reality of that fact hadn't really worked its way into Marianne's consciousness, not in a tangible way anyhow. Being suddenly and unexpectedly faced with that reality was both a shock and a sick feeling of "I should have made that connection sooner" in her stomach.

"Marianne, honey, are you all right? You've gone all pale, dear."

Marianne yanked her eyes away from the plate of whatever animal it was that her lover and his mother were devouring to see both goblins looking at her in concern. Bog had frozen, another chunk of meat clutched in his claws, staring worriedly at her. His lips and chin were coated with grease.

Marianne staggered to her feet, trying to hold down the swell of nausea. "I…I'm sorry, I…don't feel well," she stammered. "I…I need to go."

Griselda reached out as if take hold of Marianne's arm. "Here, honey, we'll lay you down in my room. It's probably the blood settling after all that jumping and spinning you were doing in the throne room earlier."

Marianne backed away out of Griselda's reach. "No…I…I'll be fine. I need to go." Her stomach lurched again and she spun around as fast as she could and bolted for the front entrance to the castle.

"Marianne!" she heard Bog's startled voice call after her, but she didn't turn around or stop. She hurtled out of the castle and made a beeline for the closest bushes, ignoring the surprised grunts of the goblin guards that she whisked past on the way out. She flung herself down on the far side of the bushes and retched.

The pungent smell of the meat still clogged her nostrils, and she couldn't get the image out of her mind of Bog, his teeth tearing at the animal flesh, his lips and chin slick with grease. She didn't know if she'd ever be able to kiss him again.

She hugged herself wretchedly, tears squeezing out of the corner of her eyes, trying desperately to rid herself of both the lingering smell and that horrifying image of Bog.

"Marianne?! Marianne, where are you? Mari- oh, thank the spirits, there you are!"

Bog landed beside her and pulled her around, his blue eyes wide with panic and worry. This close, he still reeked like cooked flesh and his jaw was still shiny with grease. Marianne almost retched again.

"You can't just do that!" Bog exclaimed. "Especially if you're not feeling well. What's the matter, Marianne?"

He wrinkled his nose suddenly and looked over at the bushes where Marianne had vomited. His gaze returned to her, even more concerned than before. "Are you sick? What's the matter?"

Marianne tucked her hands against her belly, avoiding having to look at his face. "I…I just need to be alone. Please, Bog."

He reached out and touched the tips of his claws to the back of her hand in a gentle, concerned gesture. "You know you can tell me anything, love. You were fine just a moment ago when we were sparring. And it's not like you to just take off into the forest like that. What's going on?"

She did look at him then and felt a knot in her throat. It was clear that he had absolutely no idea what had upset her so and equally clear that he had no idea that to a fairy, the concept of eating meat was as vile as the thought of eating the flesh of another fairy. Her instinct was to push Bog away, to shut him out, but she knew that wouldn't be fair to him.

"That stuff you were eating," she said weakly, "it was meat, wasn't it?"

"Aye," Bog answered, still perplexed. "Caliban and Brutus brought it back last night from their hunt. It was a good-sized chipmunk; it'll last us several weeks easily."

A chipmunk. Marianne fought off another round of nausea. Her head dropped back down.

"Is…is there something wrong with that?" Bog asked, sudden hesitation in his voice.

"Fairies don't eat meat," Marianne whispered. "I…I should have known you did, but I just didn't think about it before today."

Bog was quiet, then he spoke in a low voice. "Is that what upset you? Me eating meat?"

Marianne nodded dumbly. "It's like eating your own dead," she said. "For fairies."

"Oh," Bog said in a soft voice. He shifted uncomfortably beside her. "Marianne, I didn't know that about fairies. We never would have served it in front of you, if we had known."

"I know," Marianne answered, still staring at her knees.

Bog was silent for a slow measure, then he swallowed and spoke in a steady voice. "Marianne, I won't eat it any more if you don't want me to."

Marianne looked up at him again, scanning his earnest face. She would be lying if she said that she did not consider his offer for at least a few seconds. Bog's face was an open book; she saw determination in his eyes and the honesty of his vow, but she also saw the pained grimace at the corner of his mouth. She remembered how eagerly he had eaten the meat, how clearly he had enjoyed it. Yet, she knew without a doubt that if she took him up on his offer, he would do it for her.

And at that same moment, she understand why she couldn't ask such a thing of him, even if he had been the one to freely offer it.

Marianne had willingly entered into a relationship with Bog, knowing full well that he was a goblin, knowing full well that he was a different creature with different needs. She had accepted him for who he was, and he had happily done the same for her. Most of the time, she loved those differences, loved his goblin-ness, but it would not be right of her to pick and choose what parts of Bog she was willing to accept and which she wasn't. And Bog was a hunter, a predator, a meat-eater. She could either accept him fully for who he was or she could decide she couldn't. But if she couldn't, she had no business being in a relationship with him.

And when she put it like that, there really was no choice at all.

"No, Bog," she said. "I would never ask you to do that for me."

"I know," he answered steadily, his eyes never leaving hers. "That's why I offered."

She looked into his eyes, so determined, so willing to sacrifice a natural part of himself for her, and she felt love swell up to replace the feeling of disgust and nausea. She reached out and took his hand. "Bog, you're a goblin, and if I really say I love you, I have to learn to love everything that entails, even the parts that are difficult for me to accept."

She saw the little automatic shift of relief in his eyes, but he still looked at her with concern. "I don't want to make it any more difficult for you to love me than necessary," he said. "I may be a goblin and feel what I feel, but you have a right to feel whatever you feel as a fairy too, and I want to respect that. What can I do to help?"

"Well, not trying to feed me meat again will probably be a good start," Marianne said with a little laugh that wasn't quite as weak.

Bog smiled a little too. "That can be arranged. I'll talk to my mom and make sure she doesn't fix any dishes with meat while you're around. It's OK, we eat plenty of other things too, so it won't be a problem."

Marianne considered Bog's compromise for a moment then shook her head. "You shouldn't have to hide that part of yourself away from me, Bog. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate what you're offering, but…" She chewed her lip softly. "I hope if…if we stay together that I'll be around more and more, and maybe one day, always." She paused at the weight of her implication, then continued. "And if that does happen, I need to be comfortable with this part of you. There's nothing wrong with you and you shouldn't have to change your lifestyle for me."

She paused as her mind echoed with an infuriating drawl. Oh come on, buttercup, you know I like you better when you prettify yourself up. I just don't care for all that make-up, you know that, and you look so much better in those pretty colors than all that dark. Come on, Marianne, just a little change for your dashing lover…

Marianne scowled then continued with renewed determination. "This is on me, to accept you fully. And part of that is going to be accepting that you eat meat and that there's nothing wrong with that."

The look Bog gave her was pure awe and adoration. He moved to take her into his arms, then paused. "Is it…OK…if I hold you?" he asked.

Marianne smiled and initiated by leaning into him. "Yeah, it's OK."

He put his arms around her then and pressed her to his chest, leaning his cheek against the top of her head. He sighed deeply. "The more I get to know you, the more amazing you are, tough girl. Not everyone could have done what you just did."

"Yeah, but I've got a super amazing, sweet, kind boyfriend who I really, really don't want to give up," Marianne said, wrapping her own arms around his waist.

Bog chuckled. "Good, because I've got a tough, wise, and beautiful girlfriend who I really, really don't want to give up either."

"And that, we can absolutely both agree on," Marianne answered with a hint of a smirk.

Bog grinned back down at her. "That we can," he said.

[vannahfanfics]

May I request A current in-character canon-compliant, soft, angsty, romantic soowon x yona endgame fic please 🙏 thank you very much!!

Hello, dear! Very sorry it took a while to get this request to you; I’ve had a lot going on with the semester and my 200-follower event and such. However, at long last, here it is! ^.^ Enjoy!

Mad World

The wooden floor of her palace room groaned and moaned with her feverish footfalls as Yona paced back and forth, back and forth, back and back and forth and forth and back again. That was all Yona could do, was pace and think and think while pacing and pace while thinking. Back and forth, think think think, riddle on what the hell she was supposed to do basically imprisoned in her bedroom like this. No dragons, no Yoon, no Hak, just Yona. Yona, alone and pacing and thinking.

It was maddening.

With a sudden, deranged screech of lunacy, she whirled on her heel to tear into the curtains framing the large window overlooking the palace courtyard. Her fingernails ripped into the silken fabric, reaming into the threads and pulling them asunder as she yanked on the curtain with all her might. Little, angry screeches spilled from her mouth while she tugged and tugged, rattling the curtain rod mounted into the stone wall. The linear metal piece desperately tried to cling to the rough surface, but with Yona’s continuous and manic assault, dust began to rain down as the brackets began to wrench loose. Yona wasn’t sure why the poor curtain was the object of her ire, but nevertheless she tore into it like a mangy feral cat, dropping shreds of torn fabric around her slippered feet. Very soon the screws could bear no more and jumped from the wall; the heavy, decorative metal ball welded to the main body made the rod’s plummet all the hastier. Yona jumped violently as it collided into the wooden floor with a massive thunk! and the curtain slipped from her hands to puddle like white milk at her feet. She stared dully at the half-destroyed, dismounted curtains with burning red eyes. It was not satisfying at all; her fingers still itched to maim, to tear into everything in this room and leave it a maelstrom of silk and cotton and splinters.

“Princess! Are you all right?” Of course the noise would attract whoever happened to be nearby. Yona hadn’t much cared of the consequences of her actions at the moment; she was boiling with boredom and anxiety and frustration, and desperately needed an outlet. Normal people might cry, but Yona had elected that tears wouldn’t do. She was beyond tears now, or so she told herself. But…

Why did it have to be Soo-Won?

The young king stared with wide eyes at the curtain rod hanging at a diagonal angle from the wall, the one set of brackets struggling to support its weight, and the tatters of silk curtain surrounding the hem of Yona’s pink kimono. Her eyes were lidded and cold as she just watched him gawk. This was all his fault, really. Sure, Yona had decided to entire an alliance and come to the palace, but if Soo-Won hadn’t set off the chain of events that resulted in that alliance, this wouldn’t be happening.

Yona immediately regretted the thought. She knew better now. If none of this had happened, her people would still be struggling and Yona would be living in blissful ignorance. Sometimes, however, she just couldn’t help but crave that ignorance… Especially when the lingering flames of her love for Soo-Won decided to rear their ugly heads.

Yona’s mouth curled in on itself as her heart lurched in her chest just at the sight of him. It was maddening, the way her desire to dig her fingernails into his cheek mixed with her longing to softly caress it, the way her desire to rip every one of those flax-golden hairs out of his head mixed with her longing to run her hands through him, the way her desire to scream and yell and curse him in a thousand tongues mixed with her longing to throw herself at him and sob and beg and surrender. Maddening, yes it was. It was driving Yona to near insanity, and as she stood there, she was wide-eyed and teetering on an abyss from which there was no return.

“Yona.” His voice was soft and full of concern as he uttered her name. His eyes, still huge with the sight of Yona’s shredded prey, finally flickered up to meet her own fiery ones like dawn. To his credit, he did not flinch away at the inferno there; he just stared, measuring, waiting for her response. “Are you… displeased?” he said finally when she refused to respond. Really, Yona was still so embroiled with her own feelings that she couldn’t formulate a response. His question returned some sense of normalcy to her mind. The fire died in her eyes, cooled by the sheer incredulity at his question.

“‘Displeased,’” she echoed. Slowly, like water trickling from within rocks piled high, her wits returned to her. Her head dropped to do as Soo-Won had, stare numbly at the carnage she had wrought on the poor, innocent drapery. Her hands began to sting terribly with the weight of the own violence she had wrought, as if they were coated in hot, sticky, burning blood and insides. They were just curtains; it wasn’t like she had killed someone. Still, Yona’s stomach flopped about with the unsettling possibility that if someone had stumbled upon her in her mania, she might very well have unleashed on them like a woman possessed. It made the bitter acid of shame flood her tongue. Yona had never been so violent before. Sure, she had done violent things, but always with good reason. This was wanton destruction, and the fact that it was borne of her own hands rattled her to her core.

Well, it wasn’t entirely without reason, she rationalized. “Displeased,” she repeated in a hoarse voice. “Displeased” didn’t even scratch the surface of what she was feeling right now. She didn’t have a word for what she was feeling right now. Silent, teeth clenched, she just stared at the mangled curtains and lamented her own sorry state of being. How had it come to this? Cool, calm, collected, and strong to manic, deranged and mad?

“Yona.” His voice called her with maddening power. Of its own accord, Yona’s head rose to obediently meet his beckoning gaze. She hadn’t heard his footsteps, but he had closed the distance and was standing in front of her. She compulsively swallowed. His eyes were the one burning now, pulsing with a soft yet furious heat that made her tremble. It wasn’t anger, or disappointment, or disdain; it was something else entirely, and it both frightened and excited her. He tilted his head to the side slightly as he smiled that gentle reassuring smile that she missed so dearly but wanted to slap off his face. “Tell me what happened.”

 She wanted to lie. She did not want to admit that she had just had a psychotic fit and wrenched the curtain rod off the wall and destroyed the curtains like some kind of beast. Yona, however, felt the pitiful attempts at falsehoods dissolving on her tongue under Soo-Won’s gentle yet critical stare. There was no point in lying and he knew well enough what she had just done. “This alliance isn’t working out the way you wanted it to, is it?” he asked her with a degree of amusement in his voice that made her skin itch with fury.

“No. No, it is not, Soo-Won.” The steel in her voice was sharper than the finest-crafted blade. At the iron on her tongue, the king exhaled deeply and his body sagged sadly. The reaction disquieted her; was he acting for her benefit or truly displeased that she was going crazy cordoned off in this bedroom? His eyes shut for a second, and when they opened, Yona felt electric shocks pulse over every single one of her nerves. The way he was staring at her, apologetic and guilty, was a look she had imagined every day since she witnessed him drawing a bloody sword from her father’s limp body.

It was not satisfying, not at all. Somehow, she wanted more. The madness began to scratch and howl in her ringing skull again.

“How dare you. How dare you look all sad and guilty when I’m stuck here with nothing to do but pace and think and fret all day!” she screamed at him suddenly. She lunged at him, fingers clawing into his kingly robes like they had done the curtains, but rather than shredding them, she only clutched onto them with an iron grip. Her red eyes burned as they bore into his, as if a glare alone could make his combust. “How dare you. You want to know what happened? I am losing my mind! I can’t take it anymore!” A dam erupted inside of her, releasing long-held feelings and tears. They were like rivers of ice and fire as they flooded down her cheeks, and her voice cracked as she hissed again, “I can’t take it anymore. I don’t know what is up and what is down. My mind is reeling. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t know what you’re doing, and the one single comfort I could be afforded while I’m all but your prisoner in here is barred from me!” Her head dropped, chin banging against her chest. Her quivering hands held onto his clothes like the were the lifeline preventing her from being washed out to sea. She hated herself right now, admitted all this to him. But if she didn’t release it to anyone, even if it has to be Soo-Won, she really was going to go insane. What was her country? What was her fate? What was Soo-Won’s plan and how should she respond? These questions plagued her, maddeningly so.

With the weight of her on psyche mounting on her frail body, her knees finally buckled. Soo-Won reflexively caught her under her elbows as her legs folded in on themselves. Sobbing and groaning, she just cried pathetically while he held her up. “And you know… you know what the worst part is?” she choked out between sobs. “I hate you, but I love you. I despise you for what you did but I love you still. I thought I had grown so much, but I came back here, and it all has come crashing down upon me. I’m still that naïve, foolish little girl who wasn’t worth killing.”

“Yona!” She did not expect such harsh bite from his voice. It made her head snap up to look at him with wide and watery eyes. His lips were drawn into a taut line and his eyes were their fieriest yet. “I did not let you go because you were ‘not worth killing.’”

“Then why?” she demanded in an agonized cry. Her fingers dug further into his clothes, probably bruising the skin underneath. “Why, Soo-Won, I don’t under-”

The rest of her words came out as a surprised squeak muffled by his lips crashing into hers. It was not at all kingly, the way he kissed it her; it was passionate, carnal, desperate and mad. If Yona’s legs had been able to support her then, her kneecaps would’ve been obliterated to dust the instant their mouths smashed together. Her eyes fluttered shut with a low, needy whine; as if responding, Soo-Won’s tongue pushed into her mouth and tangled feverishly with her own. She didn’t object. She got drunk off him like she was partaking in the finest wine in the world, her tongue savoring every little bit of his essence. She could vaguely feel his fingers in her dawn-colored hair, caressing and twisting, but most of her senses were dominated by the explosion of feeling fireworking over her body. Oh, oh, how she had wanted this, and how much she hated herself for it.

She lamented the loss of his warmth and touch as he pulled away, and despite herself, her lips involuntarily chased him. She wanted to spend forever in that kiss. In that hazy fog, she didn’t have to think about the circumstances or how wrong it was; she just had to think about him, her mouth on hers and his hands on her body. It was simple. Easy. Uncomplicated. He permitted her pursuit for a moment, giving her another softer kiss with more feeling, but pulled back again after a few seconds. He said her name and it pulled her out of the fog, back to her confusing and complicated and maddening reality.

“Does that answer your question?” His voice was breathy and laced with a fair bit of irritation. Maybe with himself, maybe with Yona- maybe both. She swallowed and licked her lips, mouth suddenly drying up. Was she supposed to be satisfied with that? A kiss that seals the deal and makes everything all right? The trouble was that she was one hundred percent satisfied with that.

She stepped away from him, trying to hide the tremor in her still-recuperating jellified legs. She felt that her hands needed to be doing something so she smoothed out nonexistent creases in her kimono. Her brain whirled desperately trying to make sense of everything, but nothing made sense anymore. That was her problem to begin with. “I’ll take that as a ‘no.’” He sounded amused, like he had expected it.

“What do you expect?” she huffed. The fight was dying from her voice and spirit, replaced with indescribable weariness. She was so tired. She was so tired of fighting whatever this fight was, but that was the only thing Yona could think to do was fight. Surrender simply was not in the meek, naïve, ignorant princess’ blood, apparently. Her hands continued to fix her perfectly fine kimono while she refused to look at him. “I just… I can’t…” God, she couldn’t even explain herself. This is not how she wanted to look in front of him, flustered and stupid. It was like her previous self had been taken captive and replaced with a bungling imposter, and she was trying so desperately to get it back with little luck. Her hand began stringing through her hair, which was crimping uncomfortably with sweat. All the while, Soo-Won watched her, thankfully without pity. “I hate you,” she grumbled finally, because it was the only thing that sort of made sense.

“I know.” Oh, hell, no, he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t get that sad look on his face and think that it made it all okay. But it did. In Yona’s stupid, manic, mad mind, it made it okay. Defeated, she kicked the curtain rod aside and sank down on the cushioned seat that sat below the windowsill.

“I love you,” she simpered as she put her flushing face in her hands. She didn’t have to look at him to know he had that other look on his face, that soft, gentle smile that made her heart sing and wail simultaneously. That smile that carried a hint of sadness that never faded.

“I know that, too.” A period of silence settled between them. She peered through her fingers to see his own twitching, like he was trying to figure out how to comfort her but arriving at no conclusions. She couldn’t blame him. She didn’t know what to do with herself, either. As she sat there, the moonlight cool on her back as it flood through the unshielded window behind her, Yona finally began to feel a sense of normalcy returning to her. She partitioned off the confusing kiss and focused instead on her situation and what she ought to do about it, and was beginning to feel that clear-headed determination return to her. I just have to keep fighting. That is all I can do. I will resist as long as I have to and find out what Soo-Won wants…

She felt the cushioning dip beside her and heard the slight ringing of the metal as it rolled over the wooden floor when Soo-Won seated himself beside her. “I wish things were simple.”

“You’re the one who made it complicated.” She kept her face buried in her hands because she didn’t know what would happen if she looked at him.

“I suppose that’s true.” His laugh was hollow and mirthless. “I wish I could explain it all to you. I really do. But if I did, I didn’t know if you would believe me.”

“Can’t fault you for that.” Another hollow, joyless laugh that rang through the quiet bedroom, followed by a slight sigh. “I’m not giving up, you know. Don’t think this changes things. I just needed to get it out of my system.”

“No, I expect you won’t.” She finally lifted her head to look up at him, finding him smiling as he looked at her out of his peripheral vision. “You wouldn’t be the girl I loved if that happened.”

Surprisingly, her body garnered no reaction from that bombshell of a statement. It felt more like she had known it all along and she was vindicated now. It made a funny taste tingle on her tongue, one she couldn’t quite place; possibly a mixture of things. He smiled more as he pushed himself up from the seat and began heading for the door. “I’ll send someone to fix that in the morning,” he said with a lazy gesture to the destroyed curtains. Yona watched him go with confliction and a heavy heart.

“Yeah. Sure.” Once the frame of the sliding door clacked against the threshold, she exhaled loudly and flopped onto her side; the cushion embraced her, sinking her down into its fluffy softness. With the adrenaline no longer pumping in her system, her muscles now felt the strain of torturing the curtains. Dully, she stared down at its wispy corpse spread out over the wood floor.

The Celestial Dragons. The usurper King Soo-Won. The displaced princess. The Thunder Beast. The unknown battle for the world as they knew it.

Maddening, it all was to Yona. Somehow, though, the one thing that should be the most maddening was no longer maddening at all. She smiled thinly to herself and rolled onto her back, the moonlight washing over her like enclosing her in a blanket.

You drive me mad, Soo-Won… But still, I love you so.

Enjoy this story? Here’s Part II! Feel free to peruse my Table of Contents! 

[yourdeepestfathoms]

could you write about maggie being diagnosed with her add pleaseee

absolutely! Y’all ready for ride on a roller coaster that’s in a tornado that’s also always doing loops because that is what this fic feels like :) until you hit a brick wall and then go flying into ANOTHER brick wall but this one has thumbtacks glued all over it :) but then you’re on fire but it’s okay because there’s a sweet dolphin swimmin around and like hahaha that’s funny :) why my body numb though???? :)

Because that’s what undiagnosed ADD feels like :)

Also the ending had me WEAK

TW: Meltdowns, destructive stimming

———————

BITE.

        It all started with an itch under Maggie’s skin.

No—not an itch. A buzz. Like touching a bare bulb with wet hands. Maggie’s done that once; Bessie griped at her but she still did it anyway, mainly because she didn’t hear. Her hands wrapped the bulb and she immediately yelped as the current rippled through her, twitching and biting and—

It’s like that.

There’s a buzz under her skin. A current.

It makes her heart beat too fast sometimes. It makes her leg shake and her fingers twist and her voice leave her throat too loud. It makes her words knot and tangle, it makes her cling, it makes her—

It makes Maggie too much.

She tries, she does, she tries, she tries. She tries so hard to modulate, to concentrate, to listen, to stop, stop, stopstopstop.

But there’s something electric under her skin and it hurts sometimes to sit and listen and focus.

It just hurts.

It makes something in her stomach twist and knot and ache. It makes her head squeeze. It makes her breath leave her lungs too quick.

She tries.

But sometimes things are too fast or too slow or too loud or too quiet. Sometimes things are too—

Sometimes there are details.

She gets too lost in details, she knows she does, or sometimes she skips over them completely, or—

Her head is like a camera, she thinks, except that the camera only zooms in way too close or zooms out way too far and she can’t—

She can’t get to that middle setting.

She doesn’t hate it the way she thinks she probably should. The way she’s sure other people do. She just—

This is how she is.

And she doesn’t hate it even if sometimes she gets frustrated. She gets frustrated a lot, really. She gets frustrated when her body is exhausted and the buzz to movemovemove hasn't gone away, or when she looks up and realizes she’s lost half an hour messing with a plastic cup she doesn’t even remember grabbing, or when her mouth is too slow for her head, or—

Or when she looks at Bessie or Maria or Joan or someone else and sees the subtle way their lips press together because- because it’s the third time, fifth time, tenth time they’ve said something, explained something, and they’re patient at first, but sometimes—

Sometimes the words don’t filter right. Sometimes the words twist or tangle or hook the wrong way or sound strange and- Maggie loses the thread.

She tries so hard.

But it’s not this buzz she hates.

She hates herself.

She hates her brain and body for creating this current that sears beneath her skin. It’s ruining her, she knows it. It’s made her broken and she doesn’t know how to deal with it.

But-

But-

But-

Bessie, believe it or not, is the most patient. Bessie repeats over and over, makes Maggie look at her eyes or her mouth, asks Maggie to repeat, to show her that she remembers.

It’s strange. Bessie is usually the one to lash out the most, although she had her reasons and they were very good ones.

A lioness waiting to pounce. That’s what Bessie reminded Maggie of.

Regardless, Bessie is smart in a way Maggie wishes she could be.

(She tries not to think about that. She tries not to think about people being better at things than she is. She knows how those thoughts catch like hooks in her fish-mouth brain and tug and tug and tug and tug until she breaks the surface, struggling to breathe.)

Maria and Joan are usually good. They love Maggie enough to not snap at her when she loudly goes “Huh?” for the fifth time in a row. They play along with her when the buzz makes her skin too tight. Maria lets her mess with her hair for hours and Joan simplified things that might have been too much to take in.

They’re good with that. Maggie loves them so much.

(She loves them enough to let them be, to pull herself away, to shut herself away in herself as best she can when she finds— when she realizes she’s not—

When she sees the clench of Joan’s jaw and the twitch of Maria’s nose and the way they glance at each other, and it’s never mean, it’s never intentional, it’s just...

Maggie knows herself enough to know when she’s too much, and she loves them enough to spare them the discomfort of having to actually tell her she’s too much, to figure out how to explain that she’s overstepped, to put into words that they have limits.

People have limits. Maggie tries not to push them. She does.)

The queens are the least patient. The queens try, they always try. Maggie likes that they try. But the queens get a pinch between their eyebrows after the third time they repeat an explanation, like they’re starting to wonder if Maggie is just being a little shit. The queens are quick to get annoyed, or to fake annoyance, and sometimes Maggie can’t tell the difference. Sometimes it feels like there is no difference.

But none of them knew what was wrong with her. Not really. They just assumed this was how she always acted or that reincarnation messed something up in her.

And it did. Because this buzz was unfamiliar. It wasn’t always there. Like a parasite that slipped into her skin when she wasn’t looking. It latched onto her body.

Still, she dealt with it.

Until the other symptoms came up, that is.

Paranoia, anxiety, depressive thoughts- they all filled Maggie’s head like a thick black haze. She didn’t know where they were coming from or how to stop them. She couldn’t. It was impossible. Impossible to ignore them, impossible to block them out, impossible to disagree with the things it made her think about.

And she couldn’t take it, couldn’t take it, couldn’t take it-

Everything became too much. Maggie was too overwhelmed. She felt like she was drowning, suffocating, burning.

She felt like she was dying.

Bessie had had enough of all of this when she found Maggie collapsed in the dressing room, keening in pain. She kept saying over and over again that the lights were too bright, distant noises were too loud, her clothes were too tight. She had somehow managed to claw open her costume around the sleeves and stomach before she was in her current position. Curled up and biting herself.

Before Bessie came rushing in, noises from outside in the theater were all encompassing, rattling Maggie’s skull, eardrums threatening to burst. She squeezes her eyes closed, covers her ears, rocks frantically with her head bent to her knees in an effort to block it all out. But no matter what she does, she can't, and that's it.

Tears spring to her eyes, and she lets out a loud, pained keening noise as she cracks her head back hard against the wall behind her, digs it in firmly when she sinks to the floor. She claws at her costume like fire ants were crawling all over her, desperately trying to get it off but it won’t, it won’t, it won’t. The material tears, eventually, but it doesn’t help.

Fuck.

Her head shakes hard, side to side, side to side, repeat. She swears she can feel her brain trying to detach and fly out her nose. Her hands snap to her scalp, pulling harshly on her hair and god fucking dammit, it's still not enough. Her fingers leave her hair with one last tug, loose strands of dirty blonde stuck between them, and ball into tight fists to strike down on the sides of her head. She pushes her feet firmly into the floor, thrashes and squirms in the corner.

Nothing is enough nothing is enough why is this happening nothing is enough

She slams her feet down harder, digs the heels into the floor until her thighs ache. Then, she lifts one arm and clamps down hard and firm on her wrist with her teeth. Her other hand finds her hair again, this time not tugging but holding it in a death grip and staying there.

She stays like this, rocking and writhing and biting at her wrist with tears rolling down her cheeks, for what feels like forever. All she knows is she can still feel it- the lingering, bone-deep pain of the noises, eyes sore like she's looked at the sun too long.

That’s when Bessie rushed in. One of the stagehands had heard the commotion and alerted the nearest lady in waiting, which had been the bassist.

The sight terrified Bessie, to say the least. Watching her young protégé spasm and sob and bite herself like a rabid dog made her blood run cold with fear. She snapped into action almost instantly, practically gaining wings due to her panic.

Maggie didn’t register Bessie as Bessie. She didn’t even register her as a human being, just a presence she felt nearby. The touch she began to feel on her body, however, made her whimper in fright. First on her stomach, grazing lightly over scratches she knew she had carved in the flesh, then her head, where strands of hair had been pulled out, next her shoulder, over more angry red claw marks, and finally her wrist, with blood dripping down porcelain skin. The hand was gentle with each prod, which was the only reason why Maggie didn’t scream. She even relaxed into it a few times, almost cooing through her painful sobs.

But then fingers wrapped around her wrist and she bit down on them.

Bessie hissed on pain, flinching backwards a little. She definitely hadn’t been expecting that.

   “Maggie,” She said softly, despite the pain. “Maggie, let go, honey. Let go. It’s just me.” She felt like she was speaking to a dog rather than a human being.

Maggie showed no sign of hearing her. Her eyes were glassy, blank, and glazed over, which terrified Bessie even more. The young musician looked more dead than alive at this point.

   “Maggie,” Bessie tried again. “Maggie, darling, it’s me. It’s Bessie. I need you to let go.”

Maggie’s eyes flickered up a little for a moment before darting back down. Her entire body shudders and she bites down harder for some kind of grounding. Bessie has to grit her own teeth to keep from screaming as it felt like her fingers were about to detach from her hand.

   “Maggie-“

She winced at the increasing pressure. The skin breaks open and blood fills Maggie’s mouth.

That’s what snapped her out of her trance.

The girl lurched backwards with enough forced to make the wall rattle when her spine connected with it. Bessie rips her hand back, shaking it in the air to try and ebb some of the pain. There were marks left on her fingers, scarlet at the center and purple all around them. She hissed, shaking her hand again.

Meanwhile, Maggie looked to be completely out of it. Her head was lolling back and forth across the wall, Bessie’s blood still wet on her lips. Her tongue instinctively flicked out and her entire face contorted into a grimace. She blinks once, twice, then sees the bruising already forming on Bessie’s hand.

Maggie was guilty, to say the least. She would not stop apologizing for two days and couldn’t even look Bessie in the eye out of shame for what she had done. Bessie, however, constantly told her it wasn’t her fault and she wasn’t mad. But it didn’t make it better. Maggie still felt horrible for hurting one of her bandmates.

It was just. Terrifying. Becoming a passenger in her own body.

After that, they all went to the doctor with Maggie- Bessie and Joan and Maria. She felt safer when they were there, even though she thought she was just burdening them. And she was, she knew she was. The buzz was making her think these things.

The buzz was attention-deficit disorder. ADD.

It didn’t end there, because of course it didn’t.

She had a combination of ADD. Limbic, Temporal Lobe, Overfocused, and Anxious. Four out of seven. Of-fucking-course.

Maggie felt...wrong after the diagnosis. She didn’t feel like a human anymore. She just felt...broken.

Maggie was broken.

So were her medications, because she was having another meltdown. This time in front of all of the queens, who gawked at her like she was a demon loosed from hell. Aragon and Jane tried to help her, which she appreciated, but she refused to stop biting herself. She just wanted to be left alone in this blasted dressing room (was it not hers?), wanted to bite and burn herself out in peace. Yes, it was bad and it was dangerous, she knew it was, but she needed it. She wanted it.

Why did she want it?

   “Move.”

A voice cut through the roaring and screeching and howling in Maggie’s ears. She saw Maria drop down in front her, while Joan shoos away Jane and Aragon. She’s bringing in her keyboard for some reason.

Maria gazed over Maggie’s trembling body as she grinds her teeth down on her wrist for a moment before nodding to Joan. The keyboardist started to play gentle chords. Maggie’s eyes flicked up to her for a moment but then almost instantly went back to Maria.

   “You know I love you boy

In every single way.

Though I love you, boy

I’ll miss you every day.”

Maria was singing. Singing Parr’s song, I Don’t Need Your Love, in a voice that could only be described as angelic and, dare I say, better than the sixth queen’s by a landslide. Those first few lines nearly made Maggie release her wrist from pure shock of her jaw almost dropping open.

   “Oh I love you, boy

I wish I could stay with you

And keep the life I’ve made with you.”

Maria nodded at Maggie, smiling warmly. Maggie doesn’t react for a moment, so Joan extends the notes, but then she pried her teeth loose.

   “And...even though this feels so right...”

Her voice is hoarse and weak from crying, but it still has a beautiful hum to it, like the howl of a wolf. Maria’s smile brightens and she joined in again so they were singing together.

   “I’m holding back the tears tonight.”

Maria coaxes Maggie out of her fetal position and takes both of her hands in her own. She continues to gently serenade the young musician, slowly but surely calming her down with each word she spoke and each note Joan played. All the while, the queens watched on in pure shock.

   “It’s true, I’ll never be over you.

‘Cause I have built a future in my mind with you.

And now the hope is gone.

There’s nothing left for me to do.

You know it isn’t true

But I must say to you...”

Maria glances at Joan, who joins in with a voice just as powerful.

   “That I don’t need your love, no, no.

I don’t need your love, no, no.

It’ll never be better than it was, no, no.

But I don’t need your love, no, no.”

Maria gently wipes away a tear rolling down Maggie’s cheek with her thumb. She leaned forward and kissed the top of the girl’s head.

   “Better?” She asked softly.

Maggie nodded, her lips quivering.

   “Thank you.” She whispered. She glanced to Joan and repeated herself, “Thank you.”

Joan stepped away from her keyboard to kneel beside Maggie and Maria. She sets a hand on the guitarist’s shoulder, squeezing comfortingly.

   “We’re always here for you, kid. No matter what.”

Maggie collapsed into both of them, and they held her tightly, rocking and soothing her. Bessie joined soon enough, as she had been alerted way too late (which she was absolutely pissed off about).

   “Is she okay?” Bessie asked, rushing over.

   “Just fine,” Joan smiled down at the girl cuddled between her and Maria.

   “They sang.” Maggie croaked. Maria passes her a water bottle she had brought in, which she takes gratefully.

   “Damnit,” Bessie hissed, “I can’t believe I missed that.”

She would be there other times, though, because Maggie’s episodes wouldn’t stop, even when she got her Adderall dosage bumped from twenty-five milligrams to forty milligrams. It was just a natural thing, but the other ladies in waiting were there for her.

However, she always assumed it was the music that calmed her down. She now realized it was the loving presence of three caring musicians she was thrilled to call her family.

She loved them.

[tattletale-stan-account]

Holy shit these tags are fucking ruining me:

even while it was happening, you knew it wasn't going to last